Method and apparatus for transmitting data from several respirators

• US 10,734,112 B2
• Filed: 03/21/2018
• Issued: 08/04/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 03/22/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Loewenstein Medical Technology S.A.
• Original Assignee: Loewenstein Medical Technology S.A.
• Inventors: Bychkov, Igor
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Anh Ngoc M
• Application Number:
  US15/927,162
• Publication Number:
  US 20180277247A1
• Time in Patent Office: 867 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: A62B 18/02 Masks gas-masks for animals A62B18/06; masks for welders A61F9/06
• CPC Class Codes: A62B 18/08 Component parts for gas-masks or gas-helmets, e.g. windows, straps, speech transmitters, signal-devices eye-pieces for protective goggles A61F9/02; composition of materials for the windows or other transparent parts A62D7/00
• CPC Class Codes: A62B 7/12 with fresh-air hose
• CPC Class Codes: G08C 17/02 using a radio link
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/60 for patient-specific data, e.g. for electronic patient records
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 20/40 relating to mechanical, radiation or invasive therapies, e.g. surgery, laser therapy, dialysis or acupuncture
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/40 for the management of medical equipment or devices, e.g. scheduling maintenance or upgrades
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/63 for local operation
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/67 for remote operation
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/155 Ground-based stations H04B7/204 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/104 Grouping of entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3234 involving additional secure or trusted devices, e.g. TPM, smartcard, USB or software token network architectures or network communication protocols for supporting authentication of entities using an additional device in a packet data network H04L63/0853
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/15 Setup of multiple wireless link connections

Abstract

An apparatus and a method for the transmission of data from several respirators, each having at least one interface to a relay station and a data channel to the relay station. The data channel is unidirectional from the respirator to the relay station and supports at least two redundant technologies for the data transfer. The respirator data are encrypted and transmitted to the relay station, which decrypts the data, and authentication of the respirator and/or relay station takes place. Storage of the received data takes place in the relay station, as well as assignment of respirators and/or their data to particular users. The relay station comprises a forwarding interface for transmitting encrypted data to remote stations. A remote station is authenticated before the transmission, and data or user are selectively transmitted based on the authentication, the transmission being initiated by the relay station or the remote station.

Claims

1. A method for the transmission of data from two or more respirators, wherein each respirator comprises at least one interface to a relay station and a data channel, unidirectional from the respirator to the relay station and supporting at least two at least partially redundant technologies for data transfer, for data of the respirator that represent hours of use and/or therapeutic quality, the relay station comprising a memory for data received from a respirator and a forwarding interface for transmitting received data to a remote station, and wherein the method comprises:

encryption of data of a respirator and transmission of the encrypted data to the relay station,

authentication of respirator and/or relay station by a stored code or a serial number recognized by the relay station,

decryption of the encrypted data of the respirator by the relay station and storing the decrypted data in the memory of the relay station,

picking up the stored data at the forwarding interface,

assignment of a respirator and/or its data to a particular user or a particular user group by the relay station, so that the data are made available for forwarding specifically for the user or user group that is assigned the devices and/or their data,

transmission of the stored data to the remote station by the forwarding interface after encryption of the data by the relay station, the transmission being initiated by the relay station or by the remote station,

decryption of the transmitted data by the remote station,

authentication of the remote station before the transmission of data and transmitting data or user or user group selectively on the basis of the authentication, the remote station recognizing code or serial numbers on the basis of stored data or keys.

2. A system for the transmission of data from two or more respirators, wherein the system comprises, in addition to the two or more respirators, a relay station comprising a memory and a forwarding interface, as well as a remote station, and wherein each respirator comprises at least one interface to the relay station and a data channel to the relay station, which data channel represents hours of use and/or therapeutic quality, is unidirectional from the respirator to the relay station, and supports at least two at least partially redundant technologies for data transfer, wherein the data of the respirator are encrypted and transmitted in encrypted form to the relay station, wherein the relay station is configured to decrypt the data of the respirator, wherein the respirator and/or the relay station are configured to be capable of being authenticated, wherein the memory of the relay station is configured to store the received data and the forwarding interface of the relay station is configured to pick up the stored data from the memory and transmit the picked-up stored data to the remote station, wherein the relay station is configured to assign a respirator and/or its data to a particular user or user group, so that the data are made available for forwarding specifically for the user or user group that is assigned the devices and/or their data, and is configured to encrypt data prior to transmission thereof to the remote station by the forwarding interface, wherein the remote station is configured to decrypt the data and to be capable of being authenticated before the transmission, wherein data for user/user group can selectively be transmitted on the basis of the authentication, and wherein the transmission can be initiated by the relay station or by the remote station.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the two at least partially redundant technologies for the data transfer comprise one or more of 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G mobile telephony with radio chips from different manufacturers, WIFI+Internet, Bluetooth+Internet, memory card+Internet, Lora, Sigfox.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein the relay station is a real or virtual computer.

5. The system of claim 2, wherein an encrypted intermediate storage of the data takes place in the relay station.

6. The system of claim 2, wherein the relay station comprises a user access with configuration possibilities at least for the forwarding interface.

7. The system of claim 2, wherein an assignment of a respirator to a remote station is configured via a user access and/or at least one of editing, processing, evaluation, diagnosis, archiving or deletion of data from a respirator is performed via a user access.

8. The system of claim 2, wherein a remote configuration of a respirator is performed via a user access and/or a remote servicing of a respirator is performed via a user access.

9. The system of claim 2, wherein a user access carries out an authentication of a user.

10. The system of claim 2, wherein the relay station deletes data received from a respirator from a memory (i) after the data have been picked up at the forwarding interface or (ii) after a fixed period of time that can be set for a user or user group or (iii) after a delete command.

11. The system of claim 2, wherein the relay station further comprises a data channel for a patient.

12. The system of claim 2, wherein the forwarding interface is configured to exchange data over computer networks and calling up functions on remote computers.

13. The system of claim 2, the forwarding interface comprises a uniform resource identifier (URI) through which it can be uniquely identified, as well as an interface description in machine-readable format, which defines how to interact with the forwarding interface.

14. The system of claim 2, wherein communication with the forwarding interface takes place using protocols from an Internet context and is based on XML or JSON.

15. The system of claim 2, wherein the forwarding interface has a REST architecture and/or is configured to carry out an encryption with HTTPS and/or to authenticate the remote station by a user/user group identifier and with software tokens.

16. The system of claim 2, wherein the remote station is configured to query data of a specific respirator, and data are transmitted if the respirator is assigned in an assignment table of the relay station to a user or a user group for which the remote station is authenticated.

17. The system of claim 2, wherein the remote station is configured to request data without a specific serial number and a user or a user group for which the remote station is authenticated receives data of all respirators that are assigned to it in an assignment table of the relay station.

18. The system of claim 2, wherein a subset of respirator data which is transmitted to the forwarding interface is specified for each user/user group in the relay station.

19. The system of claim 2, wherein a counter is incremented with each change to a content of the memory of the relay station, and a current counter state is also transmitted via the forwarding interface in response to a data query.

20. The system of claim 2, wherein the remote station is configured to query data of many users/user groups, provided a user/user group has entitled the remote station at the relay station to pick up data for it, for which purpose the remote station and the relay station transmit at least one identifier of at least one user during a data query.