Patent ID: 7965309

Claim:
A video conferencing system for facilitating communications between residents of a health care facility and care givers within the health care facility or remote users located outside of the health care facility, comprising: a plurality of resident video conference terminals connected to a local area network within the health care facility, each resident terminal being associated with a resident of the health care facility and having stored thereon information identifying at least one remote user terminal located external to the local area network and that the resident terminal is associated with, each resident terminal being configured to display on a screen thereof a first visual image that can be selected by a user thereof to initiate a video conference session with the at least one remote user terminal associated therewith; a nursing station terminal connected to the local area network within the health care facility for use by a care giver of the health care facility, the nursing station terminal being configured for establishing video conference sessions through the local area network with the resident terminals, wherein the resident terminals are each configured for displaying on the screen thereof a second visual image that can be selected by a user thereof to initiate a video conference session with the nursing station terminal; and a remote conference server located external to the health care facility and in communication with the plurality of resident terminals and the remote user terminals that are associated with the resident terminals, the conference server tracking usage information for video conference sessions that are established between the resident terminals and the remote user terminals associated therewith.