Patent ID: 7218969

Claim:
A telemetry system for enabling radio-frequency (RF) communications between an implantable medical device and an external device over a wireless medium, comprising: an antenna, an RF transmitter, an RF receiver, and a controller incorporated into each of the implantable and external devices, wherein the RF transmitter and receiver of each device are tunable and may be switched among a plurality of different communications channels which differ in frequency; wherein the controller is interfaced to the RF transmitter and receiver in each device to enable establishment of a communications session and data transfer over a selected channel; wherein the external device and implantable device controllers are programmed to establish a communications session over one of a plurality of designated control channels; after establishment of a communications session, the external device controller is programmed to search among a plurality of designated data channels to select an unused data channel and transmit an identification of the selected channel to the implantable device; wherein the external device and implantable device controllers are programmed to switch to the selected data channel for subsequent data transfer during the communications session; wherein the external device and implantable device controllers are programmed to revert to the designated control channel that is farthest away in frequency from the selected data channel upon a degradation in the quality of the selected data channel sufficient to constitute a failure in the selected data channel.