Remote monitoring systems for the medical condition of a patient and a plurality of patients, remote monitoring unit and method of monitoring the vital signs of a plurality of patients from a central point

摘要

"REMOTE MONITORING SYSTEMS FOR A PATIENT'S MEDICAL CONDITION AND A PATIENT PLURALITY, REMOTE MONITORING UNIT AND METHOD OF MONITORING VITAL SIGNS OF A PATIENT PLURALITY FROM A CENTRAL POINT". Remote medical condition monitoring system for a number of individual patients from a central point. The system includes a plurality of remote monitoring units (10), each of which includes both a wireless transmission device (46) and a conventional modem (48) for communication over voice telephone lines. Dual transmission modes allow the remote monitoring unit (10) to communicate either over a wireless communications network (14), if available, or over conventional telephone wires. The remote monitoring unit (10) includes a voice processing system (30) that provides audio commands and guidance to the patient, in order to guide him through the sequence of vital signs data collection. The audio commands instruct the patient about the particular steps and moments in the vital sign data collection sequence. Once vital sign data has been acquired, the control unit (24) of the remote monitoring unit (10) determines whether a wireless transmission network (14) is available. Based on the availability of the wireless communications network (14), the control unit (24) of the remote monitoring unit (10) selects a method of wireless transmission or conventional modem transmission for vital sign data. Vital sign data is compiled at a main data collection station (12) that stores and displays vital sign data for each patient being monitored. The vital sign data contained in the main data collection station (12) is accessible by multiple workstations (56) using conventional communication techniques based on the network (web).