Method and system for determining whether a monitored individual's hand(s) have entered a virtual safety zone

• US 10,090,068 B2
• Filed: 12/23/2015
• Issued: 10/02/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 12/23/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cerner Innovation, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Cerner Innovation, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Kusens, Neil, Kusens, Michael
• Primary Examiner(s): Zhao, Daquan
• Application Number:
  US14/757,593
• Publication Number:
  US 20160180668A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,014 Days
• Field of Search: 348154, 348155, 348156, 348152, 348 61
• 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 that allows caregivers, central monitoring services, and other persons to monitor whether a monitored individual'"'"'s hand(s) have entered into an area where the caregiver has determined the monitored individual'"'"'s hand(s) should not be, such as where the monitored individual may remove or disturb a piece of medical equipment. Where the monitored individual'"'"'s hand(s) do enter the restricted area that is represented by an electronic virtual safety zone, an alert can be generated by the system and method.

Claims

1. A method for detecting when a monitored individual has moved one or both of his or her hands within a virtual safety zone, the method comprising, at a computerized monitoring system:

receiving one or more selections for configuring a virtual safety zone representing an area where an individual to be monitored should not place his or her hands;

accessing one or more 3D motion sensors to capture live video data from the virtual safety zone;

receiving the video data from the one or more 3D motion sensors;

determining that one or more hands of the individual to be monitored are within the virtual safety zone;

determining that an amount of time the one or more hands are within the virtual safety zone meets or exceeds a predetermined period of time; and

upon determining that the one or more hands of the individual are within the virtual safety zone for at least the predetermined period of time, electronically transmitting an alert to at least one of the monitored individual, one or more caregivers, and a centralized monitoring station.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising forwarding a live video feed of the virtual safety zone received from the one or more 3D motion sensors to a centralized video monitoring station for display after it has been determined that the one or more hands of the monitored individual is within the virtual safety zone for the predetermined period of time.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising continuously forwarding a live video feed of the virtual safety zone received from the one or more 3D motion sensors to a centralized video monitoring station for display, the centralized video monitoring station being remotely located from a room in which the individual is monitored.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising continuously forwarding a live video feed of the virtual safety zone received from the one or more 3D motion sensors to a centralized video monitoring station for display after it has been determined that the one or more hands of the monitored individual is within the virtual safety zone.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising updating a database in communication with the computerized monitoring system regarding the determination that at least one hand of the monitored individual was within the virtual safety zone.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising notifying a designated caregiver by electronic message regarding the determination that at least one hand of the monitored individual was within the virtual safety zone.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the virtual safety zone encompasses at least part of the monitored individual'"'"'s face.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the determining that one or more hands of the monitored individual are within the virtual safety zone comprises using facial tracking to monitor the virtual safety zone and detecting at least a partially lost facial tracking signal for the individual'"'"'s face.

9. A system for determining whether a monitored individual has placed one or both hands in a virtual safety zone, the system comprising:

one or more 3D motion sensors co-located with a monitored individual;

a computerized monitoring system configured to;

receive data from the one or more 3D motion sensors;

identify a position of one or more hands of the monitored individual;

determine whether the one or more hands of the monitored individual have entered a virtual safety zone;

determine that the one or more hands are within the virtual safety zone for at least a predetermined period of time; and

upon determining that the one or more hands of the individual are within the virtual safety zone for at least the predetermined period of time, transmit, to a computerized communication system, a determination that the one or more hands are within the virtual safety zone;

the computerized communication system configured to;

receive, from the computerized monitoring system, the determination that the one or more hands of the individual are within the virtual safety zone; and

send an alert of the one or more hands being in the virtual safety zone to at least one designated recipient.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the computerized monitoring system is further configured to actuate a timer upon determining that the one or more hands of the individual have entered the virtual safety zone.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the designated recipient includes one or more of a caregiver, the monitored individual, an alternate caregiver, and a supervisor.

12. The system of claim 9, wherein the alert comprises an audible instruction to the monitored individual.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the computerized communication system is further configured to send an alert to one or more caregivers prior to the audible instruction being sent to the monitored individual.

14. The system of claim 9, further comprising a database for logging events related to the entry of the one or more hands of the monitored individual into the virtual safety zone.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the computerized communication system is further configured to log entries for events related to the entry of the one or more hands of the monitored individual into the virtual safety zone and related alerts.

16. Non-transitory computer-readable storage media having stored thereon executable instructions which, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to:

receive visual data from one or more 3D motion sensors;

identify a monitored individual'"'"'s location from the visual data;

establish a virtual safety zone at least partially overlapping the monitored individual'"'"'s location;

identify one or more hands of the monitored individual from the visual data;

determine, using the visual data, whether the one or more hands of the monitored individual enter the virtual safety zone;

time the duration for which the one or more hands of the monitored individual remain in the virtual safety zone;

determine that the duration for which the one or more hands of the monitored individual remain in the virtual safety zone meets or exceeds a predetermined period of time; and

issue an alert upon determining the duration meets or exceeds the predetermined period of time.

17. The media of claim 16, wherein to establish a virtual safety zone at least partially overlapping the monitored individual location, the instructions further cause the computer to present a human-readable visual image of the monitored individual'"'"'s location to a display device, and to accept user input to define the virtual safety zone.

18. The media of claim 16, wherein the instructions further cause the computer to log the alert in a database.

19. The media of claim 16, wherein the monitored individual is identified using one or more biometric identifiers, and the virtual safety zone is established after the monitored individual is identified.