System and method for documenting patient procedures

• US 10,372,873 B2
• Filed: 03/14/2014
• Issued: 08/06/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 12/02/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Careview Communications Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Careview Communications Incorporated
• Inventors: Johnson, Steven Gail
• Primary Examiner(s): Morgan, Robert W
• Assistant Examiner(s): Winston, III, Edward B
• Application Number:
  US14/213,163
• Publication Number:
  US 20140288968A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,971 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/60 for patient-specific data, e.g. for electronic patient records
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 30/20 for handling medical images, e.g. DICOM, HL7 or PACS
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/67 for remote operation

Abstract

The local surveillance sub-system recognizes that a patient medical procedure has or will soon commence by sensing the presence of a healthcare professional in or near the surveillance area, and in response, creates a separate patient medical procedure A/V file for the surveillance data that will be captured. A dedicated procedure remote may be provided for receiving manual interactions from HC professionals present for a procedure or, alternatively, the local surveillance sub-system may autonomously interact with a personal security token device possessed by the HC professional. A procedure data file is also created that holds all of the pertinent information concerning the procedure that is known by the local surveillance sub-system. The patient procedure surveillance A/V file is given a higher priority than ordinary surveillance data captured by the local surveillance sub-system and is then copied to a nonvolatile memory.

Claims

1. A surveillance system for documenting patient procedures comprising:

a monitoring station including at least one dedicated storage server;

at least one a surveillance camera configured to capture a plurality of video frames of a surveillance area;

a network interface configured to transfer said video frames to a remote location;

a patient procedure remote sensor configured to detect a presence of a health care professional proximate to the surveillance area to perform a patient procedure and output a signal indicative of the detection; and

a control system comprising memory and at least one processing unit, the control system configured to;

receive the signal indicating the presence of the healthcare professional proximate to the surveillance area from the patient procedure remote sensor;

create a data event file in response to the detection of the presence of a health care professional, wherein creating the data event file comprising creating at least one header associated with the data event file;

receive the plurality of video frames from the surveillance camera;

save the plurality of video frames in the memory;

based on the reception of the signal indicating the presence, prioritize a first set of video frames of the plurality of video frames that show the presence of the healthcare professional proximate to the surveillance area relative to a second set of video frames of the plurality of video frames, wherein the second set of video frames show routine surveillance of the surveillance area before the indication is received, and wherein the prioritization protects the first set of video frames from overwriting in the memory while allowing the second set to be overwritten;

write the first set of video frames to the data event file;

receive an indication from the patient procedure remote indicating the end of a medical procedure;

determine the accessibility of a network using the network interface;

transfer the at least one header contained within the data event file to the monitoring station using the network interface if the network is accessible;

transfer the plurality video frames from the control system to the monitoring station;

detect a bottleneck condition using the network interface; and

in response to a bottleneck condition, transmit only those video frames written to the data event file to the monitoring station.

2. The surveillance system of claim 1, wherein the prioritization protects the first set of video frames from overwriting in the memory while allowing the second set to be overwritten by subsequently received video frames.

3. The surveillance system of claim 1, wherein the memory comprises a primary memory and a secondary memory, and wherein the control system is configured to:

save the plurality of video frames in the primary memory as the video frames are received from the surveillance camera; and

prioritize the first set of video frames by transferring the first set of video frames from the primary memory to the secondary memory.

4. The surveillance system of claim 1, wherein the control system is configured to create a medical procedure data file containing the first set of video frames based on the reception of the indication.

5. The surveillance system of claim 4, wherein the control system is configured to include the name of the patient in the medical procedure data file.

6. The surveillance system of claim 1, wherein the patient procedure remote comprises a personal identification device configured for wireless interrogation for detecting the presence of the healthcare professional.

7. The surveillance system of claim 1, wherein the patient procedure remote comprises an interface device configured to generate the signal indicating the presence of the healthcare professional based on a manual input on the interface device from the healthcare professional.

8. The surveillance system of claim 7, wherein the interface device comprises at least one of a switch, a lever, a knob, a button, a mouse, a pointer, a trackball, a keyboard, a touchpad, and a touch screen.

9. The surveillance system of claim 1, wherein the control system is configured to determine a beginning of the patient procedure and an end of the patient procedure, and the first set of video frames are captured between the beginning of the patient procedure and the end of the patient procedure.

10. The surveillance system of claim 1, wherein the control system comprises one or more coordinating devices.

11. A method of operating a surveillance system to document patient procedures, the surveillance system comprising at least one surveillance camera, a monitoring station, a patient procedure remote, memory, and at least one processing unit, and a network interface, the method comprising:

capturing a plurality of video frames of a surveillance area with the surveillance camera;

saving the plurality of video frames in the memory;

detecting a presence of a health care professional proximate to the surveillance area to perform a patient procedure with the patient procedure remote;

transmitting an indication of the detection from the patient procedure remote to the at least one processing unit;

creating a data event file in response to the detection of the presence of a health care professional, wherein creating the data event file comprising creating at least one header associated with the data event file;

based on reception of the indication of the detection of the presence at the at least one processing unit, prioritizing a first set of video frames of the plurality of video frames that show the presence of the healthcare professional proximate to the surveillance area relative to a second set of video frames of the plurality of video frames, wherein the second set of video frames show routine surveillance of the surveillance area before the indication is received, wherein the prioritization protects the first set of video frames from overwriting in the memory while allowing the second set to be overwritten, and wherein saving and prioritizing are performed by the at least one processing unit;

writing the first set of video frames to the data event file;

receiving an indication from the patient procedure remote indicating the end of a medical procedure;

determining the accessibility of a network using the network interface;

transferring the at least one header contained within the data event file to the monitoring station using the network interface if the network is accessible;

transferring the plurality video frames from the control system to the monitoring station;

detecting a network bottleneck condition using the network interface; and

in response to a bottleneck condition, transmitting only those video frames written to the data event file to the monitoring station.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising overwriting the second set of video frames with subsequently received video frames while retaining the first set of video frames in the memory, the first set of video frames protected from erasure based on the prioritization of the first set of video frames.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein:

the memory comprises a primary memory and a secondary memory;

saving the plurality of video frames comprises saving the plurality of video frames in the primary memory as the plurality of video frames are received from the surveillance camera; and

prioritizing the first set of video frames comprises transferring the first set of video frames from the primary memory to the secondary memory.

14. The method of claim 11, further comprising creating a medical procedure data file containing the first set of video frames based on the reception of the indication.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the name of the patient is included in the medical procedure data file.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein detecting the presence of the health care professional comprises interrogating a personal identification device.

17. The method of claim 11, further comprising receiving a manual input on an interface device from the healthcare professional, wherein the detection of the presence of the health care professional is based on the reception of the manual input.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the interface device comprises at least one of a switch, a lever, a knob, a button, a mouse, a pointer, a trackball, a keyboard, a touchpad, and a touch screen.

19. The method of claim 11, further comprising determining a beginning of the patient procedure and an end of the patient procedure, wherein the first set of video frames are captured between the beginning of the patient procedure and the end of the patient procedure.

20. A surveillance system for documenting patient procedures comprising:

a monitoring station including at least one dedicated storage server;

a surveillance camera configured to capture a plurality of video frames of a surveillance area;

a patient procedure remote sensor configured to detect a presence of a health care professional proximate to the surveillance area to perform a patient procedure and output a signal indicative of the detection; and

a control system comprising memory, a network interface, and at least one processing unit, the control system configured to;

receive the plurality of video frames from the surveillance camera;

save the plurality of video frames in the memory;

receive the signal indicating the presence of the healthcare professional proximate to the surveillance area from the patient procedure remote;

based on the reception of the indication, determine a beginning of a patient procedure and an end of the patient procedure;

based on the reception of the indication, create a medical procedure data file containing those video frames received between the beginning of the patient procedure and the end of the patient procedure, the medical procedure data file including at least one header;

receive an indication from the patient procedure remote indicating the end of a medical procedure;

determine the accessibility of a network using the network interface;

transfer the at least one header contained within the medical procedure data file to the monitoring station using the network interface if the network is accessible;

transfer the plurality of video frames from the control system to the monitoring station;

detect a bottleneck condition using the network interface; and

in response to a bottleneck condition, transmit only those video frames written to the medical procedure data file to the monitoring station.