Patent ID: 7481772

Claim:
A system for continuously monitoring an ambulatory patient's blood pressure, comprising: a patch sensor that attaches to the patient's skin, comprising: i) an optical sensor comprising at least one light source and a photodetector configured to detect radiation reflected from the patient's blood vessel and configured to generate an optical signal; and ii) an electrode that substantially surrounds the optical sensor and is configured to detect an electrical impulse from a patient to generate an electrical signal; and, a processing component configured to be worn on the patient's body, the processing component in electrical communication with the patch sensor and housed in an enclosure and separated from the patch sensor through a cable, and comprising a microprocessor configured to: i) process the optical and electrical signals to generate optical and electrical waveforms; ii) operate an algorithm that continuously determines blood pressure values by processing the optical and electrical waveforms based on a time difference between the arrivals of these waveforms to determine a transit time; iii) receive and store pre-determined calibration parameters and blood pressure threshold values; iv) continuously calculate blood pressure values from the transit time and pre-determined calibration parameters; and v) determine an alert condition from the continuously monitored blood pressure values and the blood pressure threshold value; a wireless transceiver component comprised by the processing component and configured to transmit and receive information from a remote device, the wireless transceiver configured to: i) receive patient-specific calibration parameters describing a mathematical relationship between transit time and blood pressure; ii) receive blood pressure threshold values; and, iii) transmit blood pressure information; and, an alert system designed to identify alert conditions, the alert system comprising algorithms to: i) generate an alert based on the patient's high or low blood pressures; and ii) generate a visual and audio display of the alert condition.