Systems and methods for monitoring patient health

• US 9,943,229 B1
• Filed: 12/08/2016
• Issued: 04/17/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 12/08/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: General Electric Company
• Original Assignee: General Electric Company
• Inventors: Wik, Steven William, Hakala, Timo Tapani
• Primary Examiner(s): Garcia, Santiago
• Application Number:
  US15/372,789
• Time in Patent Office: 495 Days
• Field of Search: 34087007
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2560/0209 adapted for power saving
• 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: H04Q 2209/40 using a wireless architecture
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2209/47 using RFID associated with sensors
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2209/86 Performing a diagnostic of the sensing device
• 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

Abstract

Aspects of the invention relate to a system and a method for monitoring health of a patient by using wireless sensor devices positioned to monitor one or more physiological parameters of the patient, and a gateway device in wireless communication with the wireless sensor devices, the wireless sensor devices and the gateway device forming a wireless body area network. The gateway device includes two or more radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs) connected in at least a series or a parallel connection and provides multiple frequency channels for receiving sensor data from the wireless sensor devices, where the sensor data is transmitted based on time synchronization signals and an multi-channel adaptive protocol.

Claims

1. A system for monitoring health of a patient, the system comprising:

a plurality of wireless sensor devices positioned to monitor one or more physiological parameters of the patient and configured to transmit sensor data representative of the one or more physiological parameters;

a gateway device in wireless communication with the plurality of wireless sensor devices, the plurality of wireless sensor devices and the gateway device forming a wireless body area network, wherein the gateway device comprises two or more radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs) connected in at least a series or a parallel connection; and

a patient monitoring module configured to receive the sensor data from the gateway device for monitoring the one or more physiological parameters of the patient,

wherein the gateway device and the plurality of wireless sensor devices are configured to communicate with each other based on time synchronization signals and a multi-channel adaptive protocol characterized by;

a communication frame structure having at least one beacon time slot for transmitting a beacon signal from one of the two or more RFICs, and a plurality of frequency separated data slots for receiving respective sensor data from a plurality of wireless sensor devices,

wherein the multi-channel adaptive protocol comprises simultaneous receipt of the sensor data from more than one wireless sensor devices from the plurality of wireless sensor devices in the plurality of frequency separated data slots in a cascading configuration starting from one of two or more RFICs and successively transmitted to other RFICs of the two or more RFICs based on a hierarchy of available data slots.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the two or more RFICs are configured as a system-on-a-chip configuration for transmitting the beacon signal to the plurality of wireless sensor devices, and for receiving the sensor data from the plurality of the wireless sensor devices.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the two or more RFICs are configured to receive an external control input for transmitting the beacon signal to the plurality of wireless sensor devices, and for receiving the sensor data from the plurality of the wireless sensor devices.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein any RFIC of the two or more RFICs when not in use, switches to a sleep mode.

5. A method for monitoring health of a patient comprising:

providing a plurality of wireless sensor devices positioned to monitor one or more physiological parameters of the patient and configured to transmit sensor data representative of the one or more physiological parameters;

providing a gateway device in wireless communication with the plurality of wireless sensor devices, the plurality of wireless sensor devices and the gateway device forming a wireless body area network, wherein the gateway device comprises two or more radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs) connected in at least a series or a parallel connection,

configuring the gateway device and the plurality of wireless sensor devices for communicating with each other based on time synchronization signals and a multi-channel adaptive protocol characterized by;

a communication frame structure having at least one beacon time slot for transmitting a beacon signal from one of the two or more RFICs, and a plurality of frequency separated data slots for receiving respective sensor data from a plurality of wireless sensor devices,

wherein the multi-channel adaptive protocol comprises simultaneous receipt of the sensor data from more than one wireless sensor devices from the plurality of wireless sensor devices in the plurality of frequency separated data slots in a cascading configuration starting from one of two or more RFICs and successively transmitted to other RFICs of the two or more RFICs based on a hierarchy of available data slots;

transmitting respective sensor data from the plurality of wireless sensor devices to one of the two or more RFICs based on the time synchronization signals and the multi-channel adaptive protocol; and

receiving the respective sensor data from the gateway device for monitoring the one or more physiological parameters of the patient.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the transmitting of the beacon signal to the plurality of wireless sensor devices is provided through an RFIC from the two or more RFICs and the transmitting of the beacon signal includes instructions for configuring the two or more RFICs in a master-slave configuration.

7. The method of claim 5, transmitting the beacon signal to the plurality of wireless sensor devices is provided through an external control input.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein any RFIC of the two or more RFICs when not in use, switches to a sleep mode.