Patent ID: 8228188

Claim:
A healthcare monitoring system comprising: a plurality of sensor devices for attachment to patients for the purpose of monitoring physiological data, each sensor device comprising a radio frequency transceiver; a plurality of base stations arranged in use to be placed at respective fixed locations within a healthcare facility, each base station comprising a radio frequency transceiver for communicating with one or more of said sensor devices for the purpose of receiving monitored physiological data; and a central server coupled to said plurality of base stations for the purpose of receiving and recording monitored physiological data, wherein each sensor device is arranged in use to attach to a first base station that is within range, and to attach to a second, different base station that is within range when contact with said first base station is lost, attachment of the sensor device to a base station being registered with said central server; and each said base station being configured at initialisation, or upon detection of interference on a used channel, to perform a channel selection process, the process comprising: retrieving from said central server a list of currently unallocated channels within the system; scanning said unallocated channels to determine if one channel is available and, if so, selecting that channel and notifying the central server of the selection; if none of the unallocated channels is available, retrieving from said central server a list of currently allocated channels within the system; and scanning said allocated channels to determine if one channel is available and, if so, selecting that channel and notifying the central server of the selection.