Method and apparatus for monitoring fetal status data

• US 6,350,237 B1
• Filed: 11/05/1999
• Issued: 02/26/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 11/05/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: GE Medical Systems Information Technologies Incorporated (General Electric Company)
• Original Assignee: General Electric Company
• Inventors: Knecht, Lewis Bradford, Pelletier, Andrew Michael
• Primary Examiner(s): Kamm, William E.
• Application Number:
  US09/434,244
• Time in Patent Office: 844 Days
• Field of Search: 600/300, 600/453, 600/511, 128/970
• US Class Current: 600/300
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0011 Foetal or obstetric data

Abstract

A system is provided for remotely monitoring fetal status parameters. Status parameters are sampled from patient sensors and are processed and stored in a medical facility data management system. A general purpose data presentation application, such as a browser, is employed on a client side to access the data via a network, such as the Internet. Support software is called upon to format user-viewable pages and to insert data transmitted from the medical facility for remote viewing. The technique is particularly well suited to monitoring of a variety of parameters at various sampling rates for remote medical evaluation, such as in obstetrics applications.

Claims

1. A system for remotely monitoring a patient status parameter, the system comprising:

a fetal monitor including a sensor for detecting a patient status parameter and for producing a parameter signal representative thereof;

a server-side controller coupled to the sensor for receiving the parameter signal and for incorporating the parameter signal into a client viewable presentation; and

a client-side controller including a general purpose browser configured to be coupled to the server-side controller via a network connection to receive data from the server-side controller and for displaying the client viewable presentation.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the client viewable presentation includes at least one viewable page formatted via a markup language.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the client viewable presentation includes a graphical representation of the patient status parameter.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the sensor is configured to detect a heartbeat of a fetus.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the client viewable presentation includes historical presentation of the patient status parameter viewable via the browser by user selection of a time period range.

6. The system of claim 1, comprising a plurality of sensors coupled to the server-side controller for detecting a plurality of patient status parameters, including at least one fetal monitor parameter, and wherein the client viewable presentation includes a display of data representative of the plurality of patient status parameters.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the client-side controller is configured to be coupled to the server-side controller via an open network.