Network monitoring systems for medical devices

Abstract

A ventilator monitoring system is described for monitoring a plurality of ventilators. In one embodiment, a server including a dedicated ventilator application program tor each type of ventilator, monitors a plurality of heterogeneous ventilators over a wireless network.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 - 16 . (canceled) 
     
     
         17 . A method for monitoring a plurality of patients comprising:
 providing a plurality of medical devices, wherein at least two of said medical devices are heterogeneous types;   collecting data from said plurality of medical devices via a dedicated medical device application;   transmitting said data over a network to a server;   determining, by the server, is an alarm has occurred;   determining, by the server, if the alarm is a new alarm having a different value from a previous alarm by comparing the present alarm value with the prior alarm value;   setting a just-changed-flag if the alarm is a new alarm; and   storing the alarm value and the just-changed-flag in a database.   
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 17  further comprising the step of time-stamping the alarm. 
     
     
         19 . The method of  claim 17  wherein a query by a user returns a value only if the just-changed-flag is set in the database. 
     
     
         20 . A method of transmitting, to a user, an alarm resulting from data from a medical device attached to a network, the method comprising:
 associating, by a server, a patient, a bed and the medical device with a user's communication device;   polling, by the server, the medical device across the network to obtain a plurality of data values;   determining, by the server, if any of the data results in an alarm condition; and   transmitting, by the server, a notification of the alarm to notify the user using the communication device.   
     
     
         21 . A method of transmitting, to a user's communications device, data from a medical device attached to a network, the method comprising:
 creating, by a server, a channel between a medical device with a user's communication device;   polling, by the server, the medical device across the network to obtain a plurality of data values having a data bandwidth and a plurality of data formats;   determining, by the server, the bandwidth needed to transmit the data values to the user's communication device over the channel; and   transmitting, by the server, data to the user's communication device in a format in response to the data bandwidth of the channel, the data bandwidth of the device and the data bandwidth of the format of the data.   
     
     
         22 . A method of transmitting, to a user, an alarm resulting from data from a medical device attached to a network, the method comprising:
 polling, by a server, the medical device across the network to obtain a plurality of data values;   determining, by the server, if any of the data results in a plurality of alarm conditions; ranking, by the server, the plurality of alarm conditions into a hierarchy; and displaying, by the server, the hierarchy of alarms to the user.   
     
     
         23 . The method of  claim 22  further comprising the steps of:
 analyzing, by the server, the plurality of data using a rules-based computer program; and 
 displaying, by the server, the prognosis based on the analysis. 
 
     
     
         24 . A method of verifying that data being received by a server accurately corresponds to the data from the medical device comprising the steps of
 providing a communications device having a display and receiving data from the server;   executing a verification program on the communication device that is capable of accepting a signature from a user;   comparing, by the user, data displayed on the display of the communications device with the data displayed by the medical device;   if the data displayed on the display of the communications device and the data displayed by the medical device is the same, capturing the data and the user's signature on the communications device and transmitting the captured data and user's signature to the server.   
     
     
         25 . The method of  claim 24  wherein if the data displayed on the display of the communications device and the data displayed by the medical device are different, allowing the user to send an alarm to the server using the communications device.