Personal Area Network Pairing

• US 20110221590A1
• Filed: 03/15/2010
• Published: 09/15/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 03/15/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Welch Allyn Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Welch Allyn Incorporated
• Inventors: Kahlke, Robert J., Baker, Steven D.
• Granted Patent: US 9,000,914 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 340/539.12
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0002 Remote monitoring of patients using telemetry, e.g. transmission of vital signals via a communication network A61B5/07 takes precedence; transmission systems for measured values G08C; transmission H04B; transmission of digital information H04L; wireless communication networks H04W
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0015 characterised by features of the telemetry system
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/002 Monitoring the patient using a local or closed circuit, e.g. in a room or building A61B5/0017 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0024 for multiple sensor units attached to the patient, e.g. using a body or personal area network
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0028 Body tissue as transmission medium, i.e. transmission systems where the medium is the human body
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/01 Measuring temperature of body parts ; Diagnostic temperature sensing, e.g. for malignant or inflamed tissue clinical contact thermometers G01K13/20
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0205 Simultaneously evaluating both cardiovascular conditions and different types of body conditions, e.g. heart and respiratory condition
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/021 Measuring pressure in heart or blood vessels A61B5/0205 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/02405 Determining heart rate variability
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0836 Measuring rate of CO2 production
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/14542 for measuring blood gases A61B5/14551 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/411 Detecting or monitoring allergy or intolerance reactions to an allergenic agent or substance
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/6824 Arm or wrist
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/6831 Straps, bands or harnesses
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7203 for noise prevention, reduction or removal
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7246 using correlation, e.g. template matching or determination of similarity
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/742 using visual displays A61B5/339 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 90/98 using electromagnetic means, e.g. transponders
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/63 for local operation
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/67 for remote operation
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/30 : for calculating health indices; for individual health risk assessment
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2209/43 : using wireless personal area networks [WPAN], e.g. 802.15, 802.15.1, 802.15.4, Bluetooth or ZigBee
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 9/00 : Arrangements in telecontrol or telemetry systems for selectively calling a substation from a main station, in which substation desired apparatus is selected for applying a control signal thereto or for obtaining measured values therefrom
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/04 : Key management, e.g. using generic bootstrapping architecture [GBA]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/06 : Authentication
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/50 : Secure pairing of devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/70 : Services for machine-to-machine communication [M2M] or machine type communication [MTC]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/80 : Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/18 : Self-organising networks, e.g. ad-hoc networks or sensor networks

Abstract

A method for automatically adding a first sensor device to a first personal area network in a healthcare application includes receiving a signal with out-of-band pairing data at the first sensor device. The first sensor device is disposed on a patient'"'"'s body. The out-of-band pairing data is injected into the patient'"'"'s body by a second sensor device disposed on the patient'"'"'s body. Pairing data is extracted from the received signal at the first sensor device. Using the pairing data, the first sensor device is added to the first personal area.

Claims

1. A method for automatically adding a first sensor device to a first personal area network, the method comprising:

receiving a signal with out-of-band pairing data at the first sensor device, the first sensor device disposed on a patient'"'"'s body, the out-of-band pairing data injected into the patient'"'"'s body by a second device disposed on the patient'"'"'s body;

extracting the pairing data from the received signal at the first sensor device; and

using the pairing data to add the first sensor device to the first personal area network.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the second device is a sensor device.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the out-of-band pairing data includes an identifier for the personal area network.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the identifier is a personal ID of the patient.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the signal is a low-current AC signal that is modulated with the out-of-band pairing data.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the low-current AC signal is between 50 to 300 microamperes peak to peak.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein extracting the pairing data from the received signal further comprises demodulating the received signal.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the signal is received at the first sensor device via an antenna that is included in the first sensor device.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the first sensor device and the second device incorporate Bluetooth wireless technology.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the second device injects the out-of-band pairing data into the body at periodic intervals.

11. A method for automatically re-identifying a first sensor device in a first personal area network in a healthcare application, the method comprising:

placing the first sensor device on a patient'"'"'s body, the first sensor device being included in the first personal area network;

removing the first sensor device from the patient'"'"'s body to disconnect the first sensor device from the first personal area network; and

after the first sensor device is removed from the patient'"'"'s body, re-attaching the first sensor device to the patient'"'"'s body, the re-attaching of the first sensor device to the patient'"'"'s body reconnecting the first sensor device to the first personal area network.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein when the first sensor device is removed from the patient'"'"'s body, a periodic confirmation that the first sensor device is attached to the patient'"'"'s body fails.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the periodic confirmation is the detection of a low-current modulated AC signal at the first sensor device or the periodic confirmation is a correlation of physiological data at the first sensor device.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein when the first sensor device is reattached to patient'"'"'s body, the periodic confirmation that the first sensor device is attached to the patient'"'"'s body succeeds.

15. A method for automatically determining if physiological sensors are detecting physiological data from the same patient, the method comprising:

placing a first sensor device on a patient'"'"'s body, the first sensor device adapted for joining a first personal area network;

placing a second sensor device on the patient'"'"'s body, the second sensor device adapted for joining the first personal area network;

measuring first physiological data from the patient'"'"'s body using the first sensor device;

measuring second physiological data from the patient'"'"'s body using the second sensor device;

correlating the first and second physiological data of the first and second sensor devices;

determining whether the first and second sensor devices are associated with the same patient based on correlation of the first and second physiological data.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

removing the first sensor device from the patient'"'"'s body, the removing of the first sensor device from the patient'"'"'s body disconnecting the first sensor device from the first personal area network; and

after the first sensor device is removed from the patient'"'"'s body, re-attaching the first sensor device to the patient'"'"'s body, the re-attaching of the first sensor device to the patient'"'"'s body reconnecting the first sensor device to the first personal area network.

17. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

removing the first sensor device from the patient'"'"'s body, the removing of the first sensor device from the patient'"'"'s body disconnecting the first sensor device from the first personal area network; and

after the first sensor device is removed from the patient'"'"'s body, re-attaching the first sensor device to a second patient'"'"'s body, the re-attaching of the first sensor device to the second person'"'"'s body causing the first sensor device to transmit an alert message, the alert message indicating that the first sensor device is connected to the wrong patient.

18. The method of claim 15, further comprising using non-physiological data to determine whether the first and second sensor devices are associated with the same patient.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the non-physiological data includes noise data from the patient.

20. A method for automatically identifying a patient in a healthcare application, the method comprising:

attaching a wristband to a patient, the wristband adapted to provide out-of-band pairing data;

coupling a sensor device to the wristband, the sensor device detecting the out-of-band pairing data;

attaching the sensor device to the patient'"'"'s body;

detecting a personal area network that uses the detected pairing data; and

joining the personal area network that uses the detected pairing data.

21. The method of claim 20, further comprising the wristband adapted to provide a patient identifier.

22. The method of claim 21, further comprising the sensor device transmitting the patient identifier and sensor data to the personal area network.

23. A method for detecting and displaying the names of patients proximal to a detector, the method comprising:

providing to a user a detecting device for discovering one or more personal area networks, each of the one or more personal area networks having a unique network identifier;

discovering, at the detecting device, one or more personal area networks;

obtaining the network identifier for each of the one or more personal area networks that are discovered at the detecting device;

for each obtained network identifier, obtaining one or more patient identifiers that are uniquely associated with the obtained network identifier; and

displaying a list of the obtained patient identifiers.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein the detecting device discovers the one more personal area networks via a gateway on each of the one more personal area networks.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein the detecting device obtains the one or more patient identifiers from a server computer that is accessible to each gateway.