MANAGING DYNAMIC LICENSES FOR PHYSIOLOGICAL PARAMETERS IN A PATIENT MONITORING ENVIRONMENT

• US 20180247353A1
• Filed: 02/23/2018
• Published: 08/30/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 02/24/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Masimo Corporation
• Original Assignee: Masimo Corporation
• Inventors: Al-Ali, Yaser Ammar, Al-Ali, Ammar, Trinh, Philip B., Muhsin, Bilal, Rumbaugh, II, Ronald Keith
• Granted Patent: US 10,956,950 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• 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 5/0205 Simultaneously evaluating both cardiovascular conditions and different types of body conditions, e.g. heart and respiratory condition
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/021 Measuring pressure in heart or blood vessels A61B5/0205 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/02416 using photoplethysmograph signals, e.g. generated by infrared radiation A61B5/14552 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0245 by using sensing means generating electric signals, i.e. ECG signals
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0816 Measuring devices for examining respiratory frequency measuring frequency of electric signals G01R23/00
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/14546 for measuring analytes not otherwise provided for, e.g. ions, cytochromes
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/14551 for measuring blood gases
• 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: G06F 21/105 Arrangements for software license management or administration, e.g. for managing licenses at corporate level
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/65 Updates security arrangements therefor G06F21/57
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 2220/18 Licensing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/40 for the management of medical equipment or devices, e.g. scheduling maintenance or upgrades
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/67 for remote operation
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/30 for calculating health indices; for individual health risk assessment

Abstract

A dynamic licensing system permits facility administrators to quickly enable a patient monitoring device to monitor a previously unmonitored physiological parameter when the caregiver determines that a new physiological parameter should be monitored. The administrator selects through a dynamic licensing module the patient monitoring device and instructs the dynamic licensing system to enable monitoring of the new physiological parameter. The administrator defines how long the patient monitoring device is to be monitoring the new parameter. The administrator may also select locations in the hospital, and some or all patient monitoring devices at that location are upgraded to monitor the new parameter. The dynamic licensing system creates a licensing agreement to monitor the new parameter for the monitoring duration and/or in the monitoring location.

Claims

1. In a caregiver environment having a plurality of patient monitoring devices, each patient monitoring device configured to monitor one or more physiological parameters of one or more patients, at least some of the patient monitoring devices include hardware and software configured to monitor multiple physiological parameters or a subset thereof depending upon whether a caregiver facility has properly activated any one or more such physiological parameters on a given patient monitoring device, a system that activates the monitoring of one or more physiological parameters through dynamic licensing, the system comprising:

a first patient monitoring system comprising a first physiological sensor configured to sense light after it has passed through tissue of a first patient and generate a first signal indicative of one or more first physiological parameters of the first patient in response to the sensed light associated with the first patient, and a first patient monitoring device in communication with the first physiological sensor and configured to receive the first signal and, when appropriately activated, determine one or more corresponding measurements of the one or more first physiological parameters of the first patient from the received first signal;

a second patient monitoring system comprising a second physiological sensor configured to sense light after it has passed through tissue of a second patient and generate a second signal indicative of one or more second physiological parameters of the second patient in response to the sensed light associated with the second patient, and a second patient monitoring device in communication with the second physiological sensor and configured to receive the second signal and, when appropriately activated, determine one or more corresponding measurements of the one or more physiological parameters of the second patient from the received second signal; and

a service appliance comprising an administrator terminal, memory storing a configuration table, and one or more hardware processors, the service appliance in communication with the first and second patient monitoring devices the one or more hardware processors of the service appliance configured to;

receive licensing information for the first patient monitoring device, wherein the licensing information comprises an indication of at least an activated physiological parameter, an indication of one or more unactivated physiological parameters, and a licensing duration;

retrieve device information associated with the first patient monitoring device from the configuration table of the service appliance, the device information comprising an address of the first patient monitoring device;

transmit to the first patient monitoring device, updated licensing information comprising new activation of at least one of the one or more unactivated physiological parameters; and

generate a license to indicate that the first patient monitoring device is configured to monitor the new activated at least one physiological parameter for the licensing duration, the license comprising a license number; and

update the device information of the first patient monitoring device in the configuration table of the service appliance with an indication of the new activated at least one physiological parameter and the license number.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the at least an activated physiological parameter comprises at least one of oxygen saturation (SpO₂), hemoglobin (Hb), oxyhemoglobin (HbO2), total hemoglobin, carboxyhemoglobin, methemoglobin, perfusion index (Pi), and pulse rate (PR).

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the one or more unactivated physiological parameters comprise at least one of blood pressure, temperature, electrocardiogram (ECG), motion data, accelerometer data, respiration, continuous blood pressure, pleth variability index, oxygen content, oxygen reserve index, acoustic respiration rate (RRa), and respiration rate from the pleth.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the licensing information further comprises a location in the caregiver environment where the first patient monitoring device is permitted to monitor the new activated at least one physiological parameter and the one or more hardware processors are further configured to update the device information of the first patient monitoring device in the configuration table with the location.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the one or more hardware processors are further configured to adjust, in response to the licensing information, a quantity of available licenses for the new activated at least one physiological parameter in an inventory database.

6. The system of claim 5 wherein the one or more hardware processors are further configured to automatically order additional licenses for the new activated at least one physiological parameter when the quantity of available licenses for the new activated at least one physiological parameter in the inventory database falls below a minimum quantity.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the first patient monitoring device includes a device processor and device memory including a first image module and a second image module, the first patient monitoring device configured to determine which of the first image module and the second image module is the latest image module.

8. The system of claim 7 wherein the first patient monitoring device is further configured to boot the device processor from the latest image module of the first and second image modules and after the boot from the latest image module, boot the device processor from the other of the first and second image modules when the latest image module causes the first patient monitoring device to operate incorrectly.

9. The system of claim 8 wherein the one or more hardware processors are further configured to access a software upgrade database to determine whether an image upgrade is available for the first patient monitoring device, and upgrade one of the first and second image modules with the available image upgrade.

10. In a caregiver environment having a plurality of patient monitoring devices, each patient monitoring device configured to monitor one or more physiological parameters of one or more patients, at least some of the patient monitoring devices include hardware and software configured to monitor multiple physiological parameters or a subset thereof depending upon whether a caregiver facility has properly activated any one or more such physiological parameters on a given patient monitoring device, a method to activate the monitoring of one or more physiological parameters through dynamic licensing, the method comprising:

as implemented by one or more computing devices configured with specific executable instructions,

receiving licensing information for a patient monitoring device, wherein the licensing information comprises an indication of at least an activated physiological parameter, an indication of one or more unactivated physiological parameters, and a licensing duration;

retrieving device information associated with the patient monitoring device from a configuration table, the device information comprising an address of the patient monitoring device;

transmitting to the patient monitoring device, updated licensing information comprising new activation of at least one of the one or more unactivated physiological parameter;

generating a license to indicate that the patient monitoring device is configured to monitor the new activated at least one physiological parameter for the licensing duration, the license comprising a license number; and

updating the device information for the patient monitoring device in the configuration table with an indication of the new activated at least one parameter and the license number.

11. The method of claim 10 further comprising updating a quantity of available patient monitoring devices in an inventory database in response to the licensing information.

12. The method of claim 11 further comprising automatically ordering additional patient monitoring devices when a quantity of available patient monitoring devices in the inventory database falls below a minimum quantity.

13. The method of claim 10 further comprising receiving software upgrade instructions for the patient monitoring device, and pushing an upgraded version of modules residing on the patient monitoring device to memory on the patient monitoring device.

14. The method of claim 13 further comprising determining that an override is enabled, and after determining that the override is enabled, downloading the upgraded version of the modules into the patient monitoring device.

15. In a caregiver environment having a plurality of patient monitoring devices, each patient monitoring device configured to monitor one or more physiological parameters of one or more patients, at least some of the patient monitoring devices include hardware and software configured to monitor multiple physiological parameters or a subset thereof depending upon whether a caregiver facility has properly activated any one or more such physiological parameters on a given patient monitoring device, Aa licensing digital processing system that activates monitoring of one or more physiological parameters through dynamic licensing, the licensing digital processing system comprising:

at least one patient monitoring device; and

a server in a first computing device comprising computer hardware configured to;

receive licensing information for the at least one patient monitoring device, wherein the licensing information comprises an indication of at least one or more unactivated physiological parameters and a licensing duration;

retrieve device information associated with the at least one patient monitoring device from a configuration table of the server, the device information comprising an address of the at least one patient monitoring device;

transmit to the at least one patient monitoring device, updated licensing information comprising new activation of at least one of the one or more unactivated physiological parameters;

generate a license to indicate that the at least one patient monitoring device is configured to monitor the new activated at least one physiological parameter for the licensing duration, the license comprising a license number; and

update the device information for the at least one patient monitoring device in the configuration table of the server with an indication of the new activated at least one physiological parameter and the license number.

16. The licensing digital processing system of claim 15 wherein the computer hardware is further configured to adjust an inventory database that comprises quantities of available patient monitoring devices and available licenses in response to the licensing information.

17. The licensing digital processing system of claim 16 wherein the computer hardware is further configured to automatically generate a purchase order for additional patient monitoring devices when an adjusted quantity of available patient monitoring devices is less than a minimum quantity.

18. The licensing digital processing system of claim 15 wherein the computer hardware is further configured to automatically verify versions of modules residing on the at least one patient monitoring device and update the device information of the at least one patient monitoring device in the configuration table with the verified versions of the modules residing on the at least one patient monitoring device.

19. The licensing digital processing system of claim 18 wherein the computer hardware is further configured to automatically push updated images of the modules to the at least one patient monitoring device.

20. The licensing digital processing system of claim 19 wherein the computer hardware is further configured to automatically reset the at least one patient monitoring device after pushing the updated images of the modules when the at least one patient monitoring device is at a time of non-monitoring and update the configuration table with a version of the updated images of the modules residing on the at least one patient monitoring device.