SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR THE PROCESSING OF ALARM AND COMMUNICATION INFORMATION IN CENTRALIZED PATIENT MONITORING

• US 20080004499A1
• Filed: 06/28/2006
• Published: 01/03/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/28/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: General Electric Company
• Original Assignee: General Electric Company
• Inventors: Davis, Carl C.
• Granted Patent: US 7,749,164 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 600/300
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/20 for the management or administration of healthcare resources or facilities, e.g. managing hospital staff or surgery rooms
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/63 for local operation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 128/92 Computer assisted medical diagnostics

Abstract

A system and a method allowing a technician to monitor the condition of a plurality of patients and communicate their condition to an attending clinician. A centralized receiving station receives signals from each of the patients being monitored. A graphical user interface simultaneously displays an indication of patient condition for each of a plurality of patients. A technician utilizes this information to efficiently communicate the conditions of the patients to an attending clinician.

Claims

1. A system for allowing a technician to monitor the condition of a plurality of patients and communicate their condition to an attending clinician, the system comprising:

a centralized receiving station that receives signals from each patient that are indicative of patient condition;

a graphical user interface for simultaneously displaying the patient condition for each of the plurality of patients, the graphical user interface further comprising;

a patient condition history section having a refreshing display;

a communication indicator for indicating the times at which a communication has been made between the technician and the clinician;

a next step predictor that predicts what the next action in the communication between the technician and the clinician should be.

2. The system of claim 1 further comprising:

a first communications means for the technician to inform the clinician of a patient'"'"'s condition;

a second communications means for the technician to inform the clinician of a patient'"'"'s condition if there is no response to the first communications means;

wherein the technician views the graphical user interface for changes in patient condition, upon a change the technician uses the first communications means to indicate such to the clinician, if no response has been received from the clinician, the technician escalates to the second communications means and retries the communication.

3. The system for monitoring of claim 1 wherein the patient condition is the location of the patient within the institution.

4. The system for monitoring of claim 2 wherein the first communications means is a pager.

5. The system for monitoring of claim 1 wherein the patient condition history section displays the patient condition in real-time.

6. The system for monitoring of claim 1 wherein the changes in patient condition is the activation of an alarm.

7. The system for monitoring of claim 6 further comprising an alarm summary to inform the technician of the cause of the alarm.

8. A graphical user interface for the display of patient condition information, the graphical user interface comprising:

a time based display of patient condition history;

an indication of communications between a technician and a clinician; and

a predictive indication of the next action to be viewed or performed by the technician;

wherein information for a plurality of patients and a plurality of clinicians are displayed on a single graphical user interface, and the display of information is updated regularly such that the technician can manage the order in which clinicians and patients interact.

9. The graphical user interface of claim 8 wherein the time based display of patient condition history is a real-time display.

10. The graphical user interface of claim 9 wherein the predictive indication is based upon normal institutional workflow.

11. The graphical user interface of claim 8 further comprising the display of a metric representative of communications between a technician and a clinician.

12. The graphical user interface of claim 11 wherein the metric is the time that has elapsed since the technician contacted the clinician and the clinician has yet to respond.

13. The graphical user interface of claim 8 wherein the indications of technician and clinician communications are in the form of graphical indications that convey the time of the communication.

14. The graphical user interface of claim 13 wherein the indications of technician and clinician communications are in the form of graphical indications that convey the method of the communication.

15. A method of providing care to a plurality of patients, the patients being attended by a clinician, a patient condition for each of the patients being transmitted to a centralized location, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving at a centralized location a signal indicative of the patient condition from each of a plurality of patients;

displaying a time-based representation of each patient'"'"'s condition to a technician;

sending a communication from the technician to the clinician upon a change in patient condition;

displaying to the technician a record of the communication attempt;

displaying to the technician an indication of the next probable action to expect.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein the indication of the next probable action to expect is based upon analysis of normal workflow.

17. The method of claim 15 wherein the change in patient condition is a patient alarm.

18. The method of claim 17 further comprising the step of receiving a communication from the clinician in acknowledgement of the communication from the technician.

19. The method of claim 18 further comprising the step of displaying to the technician a record of the receipt of the communication from the clinician.

20. The method of claim 15 further comprising the step of escalating the alarm if no communication from the clinician is received.