HOSPITAL EQUIPMENT EVENT INTERFACE

• US 20170039823A1
• Filed: 08/04/2016
• Published: 02/09/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 08/04/2015
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Rauland-Borg Corporation (Ametek Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Rauland-Borg Corporation (Ametek Incorporated)
• Inventors: Srivathsa, Karthik N., Poust, John, Bak, Robert, Holden, Jennifer, Kagley, Veronica, Yang, Bin
• Application Number:
  US15/228,764
• Publication Number:
  US 20170039823A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/40 Processing or translation of natural language natural language analysis G06F40/20; semantic analysis G06F40/30
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/20 for the management or administration of healthcare resources or facilities, e.g. managing hospital staff or surgery rooms

Abstract

A system and method are provided for providing an integration interface for event messages being sent between nurse call devices and interface devices outside of the nurse call system. The system includes an integration interface server disposed between the nurse call system and the interface devices. The integration interface server includes an integration engine that performs a translation process on event messages received at the integration interface server. The translation process translates the event messages such that they can be understood by either the nurse call system or the interface devices. Further, the translation process is based on whether the event message was originally created to be sent to the nurse call system or the interface devices. In this manner, the integration interface server is configured to provide a common interface to and from the nurse call system for a variety of interface device types.

Claims

1. An event communication system for integrating medical equipment with a nurse call system within a hospital environment, the event communication system comprising:

a plurality of interface devices associated with the hospital environment;

a communication network coupled to each of the plurality of interface devices;

a plurality of nurse call devices associated with the nurse call system of the hospital environment;

a nurse call server coupled to the communication network, the nurse call server is configured to communicate with each of the plurality of nurse call devices, wherein the nurse call system includes the nurse call server and the plurality of nurse call devices; and

an integration interface server communicatively coupled to the nurse call server and the plurality of interface devices and configured to translate event messages communicated between the nurse call server and the plurality of interface devices,

wherein the integration interface server comprises;

an integration engine configured to parse the event messages, determine a routing direction to a destination device for the event messages, and structure the event messages into one of an interface device event message and a nurse call device event message; and

a translation table configured to store message translation data, wherein the message translation data is accessed by the integration engine in order to structure the event messages to be readable by the destination device, wherein the interface device event message is readable by at least one interface device of the plurality of interface devices and the nurse call device event message is readable by the nurse call server.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the integration engine includes a message formatter that formats the event messages into HL-7 messages.

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising an integration interface database coupled to the integration interface server, wherein the integration interface database is configured to store an identifier of each of the plurality of interface devices.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the plurality of nurse call devices includes a personal computer (PC) console, wherein the nurse call server is configured to receive a cancel alert event message from the PC console and relay the cancel alert event message to the integration interface server.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the integration engine of the integration interface server parses the cancel alert event message for an identifier of the destination device and determines an identified destination device by comparing the identifier of the destination device to the identifier of each of the plurality of interface devices stored in the integration interface database.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the integration engine accesses the translation table to access the message translation data to translate the cancel alert event message to an event message readable by the identified destination device.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the integration engine routes the event message readable by the identified destination device to the identified destination device over the communication network thereby causing the identified destination device to cancel an alert initiated by the identified destination device.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of interface devices comprises one or more of a bed management gateway, an electronic medical records (EMR) interface engine, an physiological monitor, and a mobile signaling application gateway.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of nurse call devices comprises one or more of a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) interface, a personal computer (PC) console, a TAP interface, a patient station, and a staff terminal.

10. The system of claim 3, wherein the identifier of each of the plurality of interface devices is associated with a network location address of each of the plurality of interface devices such that for each interface device of the plurality of interfaces devices an individual identifier and individual network location address are stored in the integration interface database on a one-to-one basis.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the routing direction is determined at least partially on the network location address stored in the integration interface database.

12. A method of providing event messages to interface devices from a nurse call system in a hospital environment, the method comprising:

receiving an event message at an integration interface server from a nurse call device of the nurse call system;

performing a translation process on the event message at the integration interface server to obtain a translated event message; and

sending the translated event message to an interface device from the integration interface server,

wherein the translation process comprises;

parsing the event message received from the nurse call device to determine a device identifier and message content;

searching a list of device identifiers for a plurality of interface devices for the device identifier stored in a integration interface database, wherein the integration interface database further stores network location information for each of the plurality of interface devices;

conditionally obtaining the network location information of the interface device when the device identifier is found in the list of device identifiers;

translating the message content by referencing a translation table stored at the integration interface server to obtain the translated event message, wherein the translation makes the message content readable by the interface device; and

associating the translated event message with the network location information of the interface device.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the translated event message clears an alert status at the interface device.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the nurse call device is one of a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) interface, a personal computer (PC) console, a TAP interface, a patient station, and a staff terminal.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the interface device is one of a bed management gateway, an electronic medical records (EMR) interface engine, an physiological monitor, and a mobile signaling application gateway.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein the step of sending the translated event message to an interface device from the integration interface server comprises sending the translated event message to the network location information associated with the translated event message.

17. A method of providing an event message to a nurse call system from interface devices in a hospital environment, the method comprising:

receiving an event message at an integration interface server from an interface device in the hospital environment;

performing a translation process on the event message at the integration interface server to obtain a translated event message; and

sending the translated event message to the nurse call system from the integration interface server,

wherein the translation process comprises;

parsing the event message received from the interface device to determine a device identifier and message content;

searching a list of device identifiers for a plurality of interface devices for the device identifier stored in a integration interface database, wherein the integration interface database further stores network location information for each of the plurality of interface devices;

conditionally obtaining the network location information of the interface device when the device identifier is found in the list of device identifiers;

translating the message content by referencing a translation table stored at the integration interface server to obtain the translated event message, wherein the translation makes the message content readable by nurse call system; and

associating the device identifier with the translated event message.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein sending the translated event message updates an escalation chain active within the nurse call system.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the interface device is one of a bed management gateway, an electronic medical records (EMR) interface engine, a physiological monitor, and a mobile signaling application gateway.

20. The method of claim 17, wherein communication between the interfaces devices and the nurse call system is facilitated by an extensible markup language (XML) interface hosted by the integration interface server.