Procedure for the use of colour and selective highlighting to indicate critical conditions in a patient monitoring device

摘要

A centralized patient monitoring system includes a central station (20) which receives patient information from bedside monitors (10, 12, 18). The patient information is presented on a video display screen (44) and may include patient demographic information (60, 62, 64), physiological parameters (72) and a waveform (68). The display screen is divided into sectors (56, 57, 58, 59), with each sector containing information for one patient. When an alarm condition occurs at one of the bedside monitors (10, 12, 18), the alarm condition (76) is transmitted to the central station (20) and is displayed in the corresponding sector (59) of the video display screen (44). In addition, the alarm condition is highlighted by changing the background in the alarming sector (59) from its normal color, typically black, to a neutral color such as blue, which is easily distinguishable from the normal color and which does not obscure the patient information being displayed. IMAGE