COMMUNICATIONS HUB FOR USE IN LIFE CRITICAL NETWORK
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Accused Products
Abstract
Secured communications between patient portable communicators (PPC) and a central authority (CA) via an unsecured network are implemented using software implemented by a communications device. The communications device provides for detecting, using a multiplicity of disparate communication protocols, presence of entities requesting a network connection and determining whether or not each of the entities is a PPC, establishing, only for the entities determined to be PPCs, a connection to the CA via the unsecured network using the disparate communication protocols, authenticating only the PPCs to the CA, and facilitating communication of PPC data between the PPCs and the CA via the communications device and the unsecured network upon successful PPC authentication. The PPC data comprises at least some patient implantable medical device data acquired by the PPCs.
26 Citations
38 Claims
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1-18. -18. (canceled)
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19. A communications device for effecting secured communications between a plurality of communicators and a central authority (CA), each of the plurality of communicators configured to effect connectivity with a patient sensor, the communications device comprising:
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a logical network port configured to facilitate communications over an unsecured network; a plurality of logical local ports provided at the housing and configured to implement a plurality of disparate communication protocols for effecting connectivity with the plurality of communicators; a processor coupled to the logical network port and the plurality of logical local ports; and memory provided at the housing and coupled to the processor, the memory storing program instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to initiate interrogation of each communicator in response to the communicator coming into proximity with the communications device and transfer communicator data to the CA over the unsecured network, at least a portion of the communicator data comprising patient sensor data. - View Dependent Claims (20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32)
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33. A method for effecting secured communications between a plurality of communicators and a central authority (CA) using a communications device via an unsecured network, each of the plurality of communicators configured to effect connectivity with a patient sensor, the method comprising:
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automatically interrogating communicators using a plurality of disparate communications protocols of the communications device, wherein interrogating the communicators is in response to the communicators coming into proximity with the communications device; establishing a connection with the CA via the unsecured network with a logical network port of the communications device; authenticating the communications device with the CA; and transferring data from the communicator to the CA via the logical local ports, the logical network port, and the unsecured network upon authentication, wherein at least a portion of the data comprises sensor data. - View Dependent Claims (34, 35, 36, 37)
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38. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon which are executable by a data processing arrangement disposed in a communications device configured to be coupled to an unsecured network, wherein the instructions, when executed, causes the communications device to perform the steps comprising:
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detecting the presence of each of a plurality communicators that come into proximity with the communications device; interrogating the communicators with a plurality of disparate communication protocols; facilitating communication of communicator data between the communicators and the CA via the communications device and an unsecured network, the communicator data comprising sensor data acquired from sensors by respective communicators.
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Specification