Electrocardiographic review system

• US 3,909,792 A
• Filed: 02/26/1973
• Issued: 09/30/1975
• Est. Priority Date: 02/26/1973
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Warner-Lambert Company (Pfizer Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Donald Depedro, George Jerry Harris
• Inventors: DePedro, Donald, Harris, George Jerry
• Primary Examiner(s): Shaw, Gareth D.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Thomas, James D.
• Application Number:
  US05/335,631
• Time in Patent Office: 946 Days
• Field of Search: 340/172.5,324A 128/2.6A 315/18,365,366,367,379,411
• US Class Current: 600/519
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/333 Recording apparatus specially adapted therefor
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/339 Displays specially adapted therefor
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7232 involving compression of the physiological signal, e.g. to extend the signal recording period
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/60 for patient-specific data, e.g. for electronic patient records

Abstract

There is disclosed an electrocardiographic review system for displaying ECG data for each of eight patients. Whenever the data for a new patient is to be observed, two trend plots are first displayed on the screen. One of these represents the number of heartbeats per minute and the other represents the number of ectopic beats per minute, the time axis being divided into approximately 240 discrete 1-minute intervals so that the trend date for a 4-hour monitoring period can be displayed. The reviewing physician can move a cursor across the screen to a point of particular interest, for example, to a point along the time axis corresponding to a 1-minute interval during which many ectopic beats were detected. Following this, when a display key in the system is operated, a 4-second stationary display of the first ECG waveform of interest which occurred during that 1minute interval is formed. Thereafter, each operation of the display key controls the display of another 4-second ECG waveform. In this manner, the reviewing physician can determine those intervals during monitoring which are of particular interest, and can then immediately control the display of the successive 4-second ECG waveforms on the screen. The same screen is thus used to display both compressed-time trend data, and expanded-time ECG waveforms.

Claims

1. An electrocardiographic review system comprising electronic data storage means having stored therein electrocardiographic trend data for at least one patient taken over an extended time period on the order of hours and sets of time-sequential electrocardiographic waveform data for said patient taken over a plurality of short time intervals each on the order of seconds within said extended time period, said electrocardiographic waveform data being of a type different from said trend data;

display means for forming a display;

first means for receiving said electrocardiographic trend data from said electronic data storage means and for controlling said display forming means to establish a graphic display of all of said electrocardiographic trend data in the form of a magnitude-time plot so that said elEctrocardiographic trend data over said extended time period can be visually ascertained;

second means for selecting a point along the time axis of said plot and for controlling said display forming means to visually identify said selected point corresponding to a selected short time range on the order of minutes within said extended time period; and

third means for receiving said electrocardiographic waveform data from said electronic data storage means and responsive to the operation of said second means for controlling said display forming means to establish a graphic display of one of said sets of electrocardiographic waveform data taken over one of said short time intervals which is referenced by said selected point along the time axis of said electrocardiographic trend data plot.

2. An electrocariodgraphic review system in accordance with claim 1 further includng manually operable means responsive to successive operations thereof for causing said third means to control the graphic displays of time-sequential sets of electrocardiographic waveform data.

3. An electrocardiographic review system in accordance with claim 2 further including means for controlling said third means to establish a display which indicates that there are not more sets of electrocardiographic waveform data available for display when the selected point along the time axis references a time interval which was subsequent to the last short time interval over which a set of electrocardiographic waveform data was taken.

4. An electrocardiographic review system in accordance with claim 2 wherein said data storage means has stored therein electrocardiographic trend data for several patients and sets of time-seuqential electrocardiographic waveform data for each of said several patients, and further including manually operable means for identifying a new one of said patients, said first means thereafter controlling a display of the trend data for said new patient, and said third means thereafter controlling the displays of sets of electrocariographic waveform data taken only for said new patient.

5. An electrocardiographic review system in accordance with claim 1 further including means operable when the short time interval over which the graphically displayed set of electrocardiographic waveform data was taken is not referenced by the selected point along the time axis for causing said second means to control a change in the position of the point to a position which references said short time interval.

6. An electrocardiographic review system in accordance with claim 1 further including means for controlling said third means to establish a display which indicates that there are no more sets of electrocardiographic waveform data available for display when the selected point along the time axis references a time interval which was subsequent to the last short time interval over which a set of electrocardiographic waveform data was taken.

7. An electrocardiographic review system in accordance with claim 1 wherein said data storage means has stored therein electrocardiographic trend data for several patients and sets of time-sequential electrocardiographic waveform data for each of said several patients, and further including manually operable means for identifying a new one of said patients, said first means thereafter controlling a display of the trend data for said new patient, and said third means thereafter controlling the displays of sets of electrocardiographic waveform data taken only for said new patient.

8. An electrocardiographic review system as recited in claim 1 and wherein said electronic data storage means includes other electronic data storage means for storing ectopic beat trend data for said at least one patient taken over said extended time period and for storing message data associated with each of said sets of electrocardiographic waveform data, said first means including other first means for receiving said ectopic beat trend data from said other electronic data sTorage means and for controlling said display forming means to establish a graphic display of said ectopic beat trend data in the form of another magnitude-time plot so that said ectopic beat trend data over said extended time period can be visually ascertained, said second means including other second means for selecting said selected point along the time axis of said another magnitude-time plot and for controlling said display forming means to visually identify said selected point;

and said third means including other third means for receiving said message data from said other electronic data storage means and responsive to the operation of said other second means for controlling said display forming means to establish a display of said message data associated with said one of said sets of electrocardiographic waveform referenced by said selected point along the time axis of said extopic beat trend data plot.

9. A display and data review system comprising electronic data storage means having stored therein a first set of data of a first type representing number of events occurring during each of successive predetermined time intervals and a plurality of sets of data of a difference second type each set of data of said plurality characterizing one of said events occurring during an interval smaller than one of said predetermined time intervals;

display means for forming a display;

first means for receiving said first set of data from said data storage means and for controlling said display forming means to establish a graphic display of said first set of data in the form of a time plot;

second means for selecting a point along the time axis of said plot and for controlling said display forming means to visually identify said selected point; and

third means for receiving said plurality of sets of data of a different second type from said data storage means and responsive to the operation of said second means for controlling said display means to establish as a function of time a graphic display of one of said sets of data of said second type which is referenced by said selected point along the plot axis of said first set of data.

10. A display and data review system in accordance with claim 9 further including manually operable means responsive to successive operations thereof for causing said third means to control the graphic displays of successive sets of data of said second type.

11. A display and data review system in accordance with claim 10 further including means operable when the graphically displayed set of data of said second type is not referenced by the selected point along the plot axis for causing said second means to control a change in the position of the point to a position which references the displayed set of data.

12. A display and data review system in accordance with claim 10 wheerein said data storage means has stored therein data of said first and second types for each of several kinds of sets, and further including manually operable means for identifying a new one of said kinds of sets, said first means thereafter controlling a display of data of said frist type for said new kind of set, and said third means thereafter controlling the displays of sets of data of said second type only for said new kind of set.

13. A display and data review system in accordance with claim 9 further including means operable when the displayed set of data of said second type is not referenced by the selected point along the plot axis for causing said second means to control a change in the position of the point to a position which references the displayed set of data of said second type.

14. A display and data review system in accordance with claim 9 further including means for controlling said third means to establish a display which indicates that there are no more sets of data of said second type available for display when the selected point along the plot axis references a point past that for which there are available sets of data of said second type.

15. A display and data review system in accordance with claim 9 wherein said data storage means has stored therein data of said first and second types for each of several kinds of sets, and further including manually operable means for identifying a new one of said kinds of sets, said first means thereafter controlling a display of data of said first type for said new kind of set, and said third means thereafter controlling the displays of sets of data of said second type only for said new kind of set.