Hand-held medical-data capture-device having variation amplification and interoperation with electronic medical record systems via an authenticated communication channel

• US 9,931,035 B2
• Filed: 12/30/2014
• Issued: 04/03/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 10/25/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ARC Devices, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Arc Devices (Ni) Limited
• Inventors: Gross, Irwin, Smith, Michael G., Khachaturian, Mark, Crawley, Martin, Gerst, Steven, Barrett, John, Cronin, Michael, Turnbull, Derek, Bodnick, Jason
• Primary Examiner(s): BLOSS, STEPHANIE E
• Application Number:
  US14/586,754
• Publication Number:
  US 20160113515A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,190 Days
• Field of Search: 702131
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2560/0214 of power generation or supply
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2560/0475 Special features of memory means, e.g. removable memory cards
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2562/166 the sensor is mounted on a specially adapted printed circuit board
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2576/00 Medical imaging apparatus involving image processing or analysis A61B1/00009, A61B6/52 and A61B8/52 take precedence; image processing per se G06T; details of algorithms for analysing medical images G06T7/0012
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0008 Temperature signals
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0013 Medical image data A61B1/00011, A61B6/56, A61B8/56 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0022 Monitoring a patient using a global network, e.g. telephone networks, internet
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0059 using light, e.g. diagnosis by transillumination, diascopy, fluorescence A61B5/0093, A61B5/1455, A61B5/02416 and A61B5/0261 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0075 by spectroscopy, i.e. measuring spectra, e.g. Raman spectroscopy, infrared absorption spectroscopy A61B5/0071 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0077 Devices for viewing the surface of the body, e.g. camera, magnifying lens
• 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 5/015 By temperature mapping of body part
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/02055 Simultaneously evaluating both cardiovascular condition and temperature
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/021 Measuring pressure in heart or blood vessels A61B5/0205 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/024 Detecting, measuring or recording pulse rate or heart rate A61B5/0205, A61B5/021 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/02433 for infrared radiation
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0245 by using sensing means generating electric signals, i.e. ECG signals
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0261 using optical means, e.g. infrared light
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/03 Detecting, measuring or recording fluid pressure within the body other than blood pressure, e.g. cerebral pressure; Measuring pressure in body tissues or organs A61B5/205 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/08 Detecting, measuring or recording devices for evaluating the respiratory organs A61B5/0205 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/318 : Heart-related electrical modalities, e.g. electrocardiography [ECG]
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/441 : Skin evaluation, e.g. for skin disorder diagnosis
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/6887 : mounted on external non-worn devices, e.g. non-medical devices
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/6898 : Portable consumer electronic devices, e.g. music players, telephones, tablet computers
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7225 : Details of analog processing, e.g. isolation amplifier, gain or sensitivity adjustment, filtering, baseline or drift compensation A61B5/30, A61B5/316 take precedence; transformers for specific applications H01F38/00; amplifiers H03F
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/725 : using specific filters therefor, e.g. Kalman or adaptive filters A61B5/316 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7264 : Classification of physiological signals or data, e.g. using neural networks, statistical classifiers, expert systems or fuzzy systems neural networks per se G06N3/00; expert systems per se G06N5/00
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7271 : Specific aspects of physiological measurement analysis A61B5/316, A61B5/349 and A61B5/374 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7275 : Determining trends in physiological measurement data; Predicting development of a medical condition based on physiological measurements, e.g. determining a risk factor
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7278 : Artificial waveform generation or derivation, e.g. synthesising signals from measured signals A61B5/327 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/742 : using visual displays A61B5/339 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7425 : Displaying combinations of multiple images regardless of image source, e.g. displaying a reference anatomical image with a live image geometric transforms for image registration G06T3/14; enhancement using image fusion G06T5/50; algorithms for registration of images G06T7/30
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/746 : Alarms related to a physiological condition, e.g. details of setting alarm thresholds or avoiding false alarms alarms per se G08B
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7475 : User input or interface means, e.g. keyboard, pointing device, joystick
• CPC Class Codes: G01J 2005/0077 : Imaging
• CPC Class Codes: G01J 5/0025 : Living bodies ear thermometers G01J5/0011; detecting, measuring or recording for diagnostic purposes A61B5/00
• CPC Class Codes: G01J 5/025 : Interfacing a pyrometer to an external device or network; User interface
• CPC Class Codes: G01J 5/10 : using electric radiation detectors
• CPC Class Codes: G01K 13/223 : Infrared clinical thermometers, e.g. tympanic
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 13/14 : for use with infrared or ultraviolet radiation G02B13/008, G02B13/16 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 18/23 : Clustering techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10048 : Infrared image
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/20024 : Filtering details
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/20132 : Image cropping
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30004 : Biomedical image processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30088 : Skin; Dermal
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30104 : Vascular flow; Blood flow; Perfusion
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2210/22 : Cropping
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2210/41 : Medical
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 3/40 : Scaling of whole images or parts thereof, e.g. expanding or contracting
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/0012 : Biomedical image inspection
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/174 : involving the use of two or more images
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/269 : using gradient-based methods
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/90 : Determination of colour characteristics
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/182 : Level alarms, e.g. alarms responsive to variables exceeding a threshold
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 5/36 : using visible light sources
• 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 40/60 : for the operation of medical equipment or devices
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/63 : for local operation
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/67 : for remote operation
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/26 : at least one of which is mobile
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4633 : Interconnection of networks using encapsulation techniques, e.g. tunneling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/04 : specially adapted for terminals or networks with limited capabilities; specially adapted for terminal portability
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 : in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 : specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 : Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/53 : using third party service providers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 : Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 25/76 : Addressed sensors, e.g. MOS or CMOS sensors
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/33 : Transforming infrared radiation cameras or camera modules for generating image signals from infrared radiation H04N23/20; circuitry of SSIS for transforming infrared radiation into image signals H04N25/20
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/08 : Access security
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/08 : Access restriction or access information delivery, e.g. discovery data delivery signalling during connection H04W76/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/16 : Discovering, processing access restriction or access information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/10 : Connection setup
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/11 : Allocation or use of connection identifiers
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/12 : Setup of transport tunnels
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 80/04 : Network layer protocols, e.g. mobile IP [Internet Protocol]

Abstract

In one implementation, an apparatus estimates body core temperature from an infrared measurement of an external source point using a cubic relationship between the body core temperature and the measurement of an external source point is described, estimates temperature from a digital infrared sensor and determines vital signs from a solid-state image transducer, or determines vital signs from a solid-state image transducer and estimates body core temperature from an infrared measurement of an external source point using a cubic relationship between the body core temperature and the measurement of an external source point; after which the estimated and/or determined information is transmitted to an external database.

Claims

1. A non-touch thermometer to measure a temperature, the non-touch thermometer comprising:

a microprocessor;

a battery operably coupled to the microprocessor;

a single button operably coupled to the microprocessor;

a camera operably coupled to the microprocessor and operable to capture at least two images to a memory;

wherein the microprocessor includes a pixel-examination-module that is operable to examine pixel values of the at least two images in the memory, a temporal-variation module that is operable to determine temporal variation of the pixel values between the at least two images, wherein the temporal-variation module includes a skin-pixel-identifier that identifies pixel values that are representative of the skin in at least two images, a spatial bandpass filter that is operably coupled to the skin-pixel-identifier and that processes output of the skin-pixel-identifier, a temporal bandpass filter that is operably to a regional facial clusterial module and that is applied to output of the spatial bandpass filter and a temporal-variation identifier that is operably coupled to the temporal bandpass filter and that identifies temporal variation of the output of the temporal bandpass filter, the microprocessor further comprising a signal processing module that is operable to amplify the temporal variation resulting in amplified temporal variation, and a vital-sign generator that is operably coupled to the signal processing module that generates at least one human vital sign from the temporal variation;

a wireless communication subsystem that is operably coupled to the microprocessor and that is operable to transmit a representation of the at least one human vital sign; and

a display device that is operably coupled to the microprocessor that displays the at least one human vital sign,

wherein a connection is established by the wireless communication subsystem to an external device and the representation of the at least one human vital sign is pushed from the non-touch thermometer through the wireless communication subsystem, thereafter the external device controls flow of the data between the non-touch thermometer and the external device, wherein the connection further comprises an authenticated communication channel.

2. The non-touch thermometer of claim 1, wherein the signal processing module is further configured to amplify variations of the pixel values between the at least two images.

3. The non-touch thermometer of claim 1, wherein the signal processing is temporal processing.

4. The non-touch thermometer of claim 3, wherein the temporal processing is a bandpass filter.

5. The non-touch thermometer of claim 4, wherein the bandpass filter is configured to analyze frequencies over time.

6. The non-touch thermometer of claim 1, wherein applying signal processing includes spatial processing.

7. The non-touch thermometer of claim 1 wherein the wireless communication subsystem transmits to a static IP address in order to reduce IP discovery burden on the device.

8. The non-touch thermometer of claim 1 wherein the wireless communication subsystem transmits through an IP tunnel.

9. The non-touch thermometer of claim 1, wherein the wireless communication subsystem further comprises:

a component that is operable to transmit a representation of date and time, operator ID, patient identification and manufacturer, model number and firmware revision of the device.

10. The non-touch thermometer of claim 1 wherein the microprocessor that is programmed to execute:

a cropper that is operable to receive the at least two images and that is operable to crop each of the images to exclude a border area of the images, generating at least two cropped images.

11. The non-touch thermometer of claim 1 further comprising:

a digital infrared sensor operably coupled to the microprocessor, the digital infrared sensor having only digital readout ports, the digital infrared sensor having no analog sensor readout ports.

12. The non-touch thermometer of claim 11 further comprising:

wherein the microprocessor is operable to receive from the digital readout ports a digital signal that is representative of an infrared signal detected by the digital infrared sensor and the microprocessor is operable to determine a temperature from the digital signal that is representative of the infrared signal.

13. The non-touch thermometer of claim 12, wherein the temperature further comprises a body core temperature and wherein determining the body core temperature is based on a cubic relationship representing three thermal ranges between a numerical representation of electromagnetic energy of an external source point and the body core temperature, wherein the cubic relationship includes a coefficient representative of different relationships between the external source point and the body core temperature in the three thermal ranges.