Biological signal management

Abstract

Systems and techniques for managing biological signals. In one implementation, a method includes receiving a cardiac biological signal that includes information describing events, determining a merit of each event based on one or more of a severity of a cardiac condition associated with the event and a quality of the event, and handling a subset of the events that meet a merit criterion. The subset can be handled for medical purposes.

1 . An apparatus comprising: 
 instrumentation that comprises 
 one or more sensors for sensing a time-variant physiological parameter of an individual, and  
 a data processing device configured to perform data processing activities, the activities including identifying events in the sensed physiological parameter, allocating events into categories based on characteristics of the sensed physiological parameter, discarding at least some of the events based on characteristics of the sensed physiological parameter, and associating data describing times when the events that are not discarded occurred with data describing the categories of the events, wherein each event comprises a period of time when an information content of the physiological parameter is of increased medical relevance, and  
 a data output configured to output the associations of the data describing the times and the data describing the categories.  
   
   
   
       2 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein allocating the events into categories comprises determining a relevance of the sensed physiological parameter during a first event to a physiological condition.  
   
   
       3 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein discarding at least some of the events comprises prioritizing a first collection of events allocated to a first category based on characteristics of the sensed physiological parameter during the events in the first collection.  
   
   
       4 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the instrumentation comprises: 
 a first module that comprises the collection of electrodes for sensing an electrical activity of a heart;    a second module; and    a wireless data link between the first module and the second module.    
   
   
       5 . The apparatus of  claim 4 , wherein the second module comprises the data output.  
   
   
       6 . The apparatus of  claim 4 , wherein the second module comprises the data processing device.  
   
   
       7 . The apparatus of  claim 4 , wherein the first module comprises a patient-portable sensing module.  
   
   
       8 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the instrumentation further comprises a memory configured to store the associations of the data describing the times and the data describing the categories in association with the physiological data of the events.  
   
   
       9 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the data processing device is configured to associate the data describing the times with the data describing the categories by creating a data structure that includes the data describing the times and the data describing the categories.  
   
   
       10 . A method comprising: 
 sensing, at a patient-portable sensor module, physiological electrical activity of an individual;    identifying a collection of events in the sensed physiological electrical activity, wherein each event comprises a period of time when an information content of the sensed physiological electrical activity is of increased medical relevance;    discarding at least one event based on characteristics of the sensed electrical activity; and    transmitting data describing the events in the collection that are not discarded to a receiver in a vicinity of the patient-portable sensor module.    
   
   
       11 . The method of  claim 10 , wherein transmitting the data describing the events comprises transmitting the data describing the events to a medical system receiver.  
   
   
       12 . The method of  claim 10 , wherein transmitting the data describing the events comprises transmitting the data describing the events over a wireless data link.  
   
   
       13 . The method of  claim 10 , further comprising allocating events in the collection into categories based on characteristics of the sensed electrical activity of each event.  
   
   
       14 . The method of  claim 13 , wherein discarding at least one event comprises discarding a certain event based on a merit of the certain event relative to the events allocated to the category of the certain event.  
   
   
       15 . An apparatus comprising: 
 a monitoring instrument that comprises 
 one or more sensing elements for sensing a time-variant physiological parameter of a monitored individual,  
 a data processing device configured to perform data processing activities, the activities including identifying an event in the sensed physiological parameter, determining a severity of the event based on characteristics of the sensed physiological parameter during the event, determining whether the event is sufficiently severe to warrant immediate output, immediately outputting a description of the event if it is determined that the event is sufficiently severe, and storing data describing the event in association with data describing a time when the event occurred if it is determined that the event is not sufficiently severe, and  
 a data output configured to output data,  
   wherein the event comprises a period of time when an information content of the physiological parameter is of increased medical relevance.    
   
   
       16 . The apparatus of  claim 15 , wherein the monitoring instrument further comprises an input device configured to receive an event trigger input by which a user can manually trigger output of data describing an event.  
   
   
       17 . The apparatus of  claim 15 , wherein the monitoring instrument comprises an electrocardiographic instrument.  
   
   
       18 . A system comprising: 
 a collection of electrocardiographic monitoring instruments that each comprise 
 a collection of electrodes for sensing electrical activity of a heart of a monitored individual,  
 a data processing device configured to perform data processing activities, the activities including identifying an event in the sensed electrical activity, classifying the event into a category based on characteristics of the sensed electrical activity, and associating data identifying the monitored individual and data describing the category of the event, and  
 a wireless signal output configured to output the association of the data identifying the monitored individual and the data describing the category of the event; and  
   a receiver that comprises a wireless input configured to receive the associations output from each of the electrocardiographic monitoring instruments,    wherein the event comprises a period of time when an information content of the sensed electrical activity is of increased medical relevance.    
   
   
       19 . The system of  claim 18 , wherein the wireless receiver comprises a router configured to direct the associations based at least in part on the data identifying the monitored individual.  
   
   
       20 . The system of  claim 18 , wherein the wireless receiver comprises a router configured to direct the associations based at least in part on a category of the event.  
   
   
       21 . The system of  claim 18 , wherein the wireless signal output comprises a radio-frequency transmitter.  
   
   
       22 . The system of  claim 18 , wherein the wireless input comprises a cellular phone transmitter.  
   
   
       23 . The system of  claim 18 , wherein the wireless receiver comprises a local receiver that is in the vicinity of the electrocardiographic monitoring instruments.