System and method for transmitting health data in health care environment
By using dynamic subscription requests to establish communication channels in a healthcare environment, consumer device connection complexity and backup processing problems are solved, and more efficient health data transmission and more stable medical data services are achieved.
Patent Information
- Application Number
- CN202510155373.4
- Authority / Receiving Office
- CN · China
- Patent Type
- Applications(China)
- Current Assignee / Owner
- Priority Date
- 2017-09-27
- Filing Date
- 2018-09-05
- Publication Date
- 2025-06-17
AI Technical Summary
In a healthcare environment, it is difficult for the prior art to realize the dynamic connection of consumer devices to the network, and when the hospital information system server fails, it is difficult to perform effective backup processing, resulting in increased data load and service interruption.
The subscription request message is sent to the reporting device through the consumer device, and the communication channel is dynamically established, thereby realizing the transmission of healthy data. The system includes a communication network, a reporting device and a consumer device that, upon receiving a subscription request message, verifies the request and establishes a communication channel to transmit health data to the consumer device.
This system enables consumer devices to automatically connect to the network, reducing the complexity of connection work and data load, and effectively performing backup processing in the event of server failure to ensure the stable transmission of medical data.
Smart Images
Figure CN120164600A_ABST
Abstract
Description
[0001] This application is a divisional application of a Chinese patent application with an application date of September 5, 2018, an international application number of PCT / EP2018 / 073798, an invention title of "Systems and Methods for Transmitting Health Data in a Healthcare Environment", and an application number for entering the Chinese national phase of 201880057791.8. Technical Field
[0002] The present invention relates to a system for transmitting health data in a healthcare environment and to a method for transmitting health data in a healthcare environment.
[0003] Such a system includes a communication network for transmitting health data in a healthcare environment. In this regard, a reporting device is used to transmit health data via the communication network, while a consuming device is used to receive health data from the reporting device via a communication channel of the communication network. Background Art
[0004] Typically, in a healthcare environment such as a hospital, at different locations in the healthcare environment, for example, in different departments (such as general wards, intensive care units, emergency departments, etc.) and in different rooms of different departments, for example, at the bedside of different patients, a plurality of patient care devices are operated, such as infusion devices for administering drugs to patients. Such patient care devices typically operate independently and generate data related to, for example, completed or ongoing infusion operations, which data should be transmitted, at least to some extent, as health data to, for example, a hospital information system (HIS).
[0005] Within a hospital communication network, patient care devices are typically connected to a gateway device, which, for example, preprocesses the health data received from the patient care devices for transmission to the hospital information system.
[0006] A hospital information system should generally be understood as a set of information processing systems for collecting, processing, and distributing medical data and administrative data in a hospital. In particular, a hospital information system includes one or more servers for receiving and processing health data to provide health data to users, for example, users can access the hospital information system internally in the hospital from a fixed workstation or use a mobile communication device (such as a tablet or smartphone) to access the hospital information system.
[0007] In particular, a hospital information system may include or be used as a Patient Data Monitoring System (PDMS, commonly used in Europe) or an Electronic Medical Record (EMR, commonly used in the United States for example) to collect and process information related to patients. From a technical perspective, an EMR generally refers to a permanent database, while a PDMS refers to a client-side interface displayed at the patient's bedside. As an upper-layer architecture concept, a Hospital Information System (HIS) provides a global system architecture for interconnecting medical devices, PDMS / EMR databases, and mobile communication devices via a hospital network (either wired or wireless).
[0008] To connect the server of a hospital information system / patient data monitoring system to the communication network of a healthcare environment, statically configured connections are conventionally used. Therefore, both the server and the network must be configured before interacting with the communication network. In particular, the gateway used to send outgoing health data to the server must be configured, whereby the server remains statically connected to the network. This configuration is typically performed manually by an IT administrator and may cause service interruptions for other systems.
[0009] In addition, with conventional settings, it is difficult to implement a redundancy scheme for providing backup in the event of a server failure in a hospital information system because this may increase data traffic or may require specific additional network hardware. Summary of the Invention
[0010] An object of the present invention is to provide a system and method for transmitting health data in a healthcare environment, which can enable a consumer device to easily connect to a network, and can reduce data load and improve backup processing.
[0011] This object is achieved by a system for transmitting health data in a healthcare environment. The system includes: a communication network for transmitting health data in a healthcare environment; a reporting device for transmitting health data via the communication network; and a consumer device for receiving health data from the reporting device via a communication channel of the communication network, wherein the consumer device for receiving health data from the reporting device is configured to send a subscription request message including a subscription request to the reporting device, and the reporting device is configured to verify the subscription request after receiving the subscription request message and establish the communication channel to transmit health data to the consumer device, wherein the subscription request includes information related to at least one of a unique identifier, network connection parameters, an integration profile, a refresh delay, and a location in the healthcare environment, the information related to the location identifies the location of a patient care device from which health data is to be transmitted to the consumer device, and the refresh delay defines a period for refreshing health data, and the period of data communication is set separately for the established communication channel.
[0012] Thus, a consumer device for receiving health data from a reporting device is configured to send a subscription request message including a subscription request to the reporting device, and the reporting device is configured to verify the subscription request and establish a communication channel to transmit health data to the consumer device after receiving the subscription request message.
[0013] Thus, a communication channel for transmitting health data from the reporting device to the consumer device can be dynamically established after a subscription request from the consumer device. The establishment of the communication channel is initiated by a subscription request message sent from the consumer device to the reporting device, whereby the reporting device verifies the subscription request included in the subscription request message and, upon successful verification, establishes a communication channel to transmit health data to the consumer device.
[0014] Since the establishment of the communication channel can be performed dynamically, no static configuration of the reporting device and the consumer device is required, which can help reduce the effort for establishing a connection. In particular, no action by an IT administrator may be required, and the establishment of the communication channel is automatically performed through negotiation between the consumer device and the reporting device.
[0015] By means of the subscription request, the consumer device indicates its desire to receive health data. The subscription request herein can be specific in that the subscription request can specify a specific set of patient care devices (e.g., infusion devices) from which health data can be routinely received, e.g., patient care devices located at a specific location in a specific department such as a hospital. Once the communication channel is established, the reporting device routinely transmits the health data specified according to the subscription request to the consumer device, e.g., health data collected from a specified subgroup of patient care devices, and the consumer device collects the health data and processes the data, e.g., for further use within a hospital information system.
[0016] In one embodiment, the consumer device can be configured to send the subscription request message via a secure channel different from the communication channel (e.g., a channel according to HTTPS). HTTPS stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure and represents a communication protocol specifically for secure data transmission on the Internet. In particular, an HTTPS connection is secure because HTTPS uses encryption and authentication. Encryption specifically uses SSL / TLS.
[0017] In one embodiment, the communication channel established after successful verification of the subscription request included in the subscription request message may use a different technology from the secure channel used for sending the subscription request message. The communication channel may be established as a secure connection and may in particular use a TCP / IP connection, in particular an MLLP connection. TCP / IP stands for Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol, and since TCP / IP is used in the Internet, network parties are identified by means of IP addresses. MLLP stands for Minimal Lower Layer Protocol. The MLLP connection may in particular be specified by the HL7 standards group for the exchange of health data between systems within a healthcare environment, in particular within a hospital communication network or between systems of different hospitals.
[0018] In one embodiment, the reporting device is configured to send a reply message to the computing consumer device after receiving the subscription request message to verify the subscription request. Advantageously, the reply message is preferably sent on the same secure channel as the subscription request message was sent on, such that the reporting device replies to the consumer device on the same channel. The reply message indicates whether the verification of the subscription request in the subscription request message was successful. If the subscription request has been verified, the reporting device will open a communication channel on the communication network using the parameters specified in the subscription request.
[0019] In one embodiment, the reporting device may be a so-called Device Observation Reporter (DOR) configured to receive health data from one or more patient care devices located in a healthcare environment. The consumer device, in turn, may be a Device Observation Consumer (DOC) configured to receive health data from the device observation reporter. The DOR is typically used to collect health data including data based on a proprietary format from patient care devices and is configured to map and format the collected data to provide transactions with consistent syntax and semantics. The DOC is in turn used to receive the health data of the patient care devices from the DOR, collect the received health data, and process the health data.
[0020] The communication between the DOR and the DOC may be defined by a so-called integration profile (e.g., standardized integration profiles such as IHE IPEC, DEC, ACM, etc.), which may in particular define the format and syntax of the health data to be transmitted from the DOR to the DOC and exchange the sequence for sending the health data, such that the health data can be received and processed within the DOC according to the standardized format and syntax.
[0021] In one embodiment, the consumer device is a hospital information system configured to receive and process health data and provide information to a user, e.g., the user may access the hospital information system from a fixed workstation or using a mobile communication device.
[0022] The subscription request included in the subscription request message may include information defining a communication channel to be established for transmitting health data from a reporting device to a consuming device. In particular, the subscription request may include information related to a unique identifier, network connection parameters, integration profiles, refresh latency, and location in a healthcare environment.
[0023] The unique identifier may be used to identify the connection (communication channel) established between the reporting device and the consuming device.
[0024] For example, the network connection parameters may include the TCP / IP address, hostname, and port to be used.
[0025] The information related to the integration profile may be related to a standard integration profile to be used for communication (e.g., IHE (IPEC, DEC, ACM, etc.), FHIR) or a proprietary integration profile.
[0026] The information related to the refresh latency may define the period for refreshing the health data, i.e., for example, the period for sending health data messages related to a specific set of patient care devices (e.g., infusion devices) from the reporting device to the consuming device.
[0027] For example, the information related to the location may be used to identify a location within a healthcare environment such as a specific department of a hospital, a specific set of rooms within a department of a hospital, etc. to identify a set of patient care devices from which health data is transmitted to the consuming device. Generally, a hospital may be organized in a hierarchical or tree-like manner, with the highest level defined as the entire hospital, and the hospital can be decomposed into hierarchical levels related to departments, rooms (within departments), and beds (within rooms). The location information may be related to such hierarchical levels, e.g., the location information defines a specific department or a specific set of rooms within a department or a specific bed within a room in a department. Thus, according to the subscription, the reporting device only sends those health data related to the specific set of patient care devices, e.g., only those patient care devices located in a specific area of the hospital, such as in a specific department or in a specific room, to the consuming device. Therefore, not all health data collected in the entire healthcare environment is sent to the consuming device (e.g., a hospital information system), essentially reducing the data load on the network.
[0028] This object is also achieved by a method for transmitting health data in a healthcare environment, the method including: transmitting health data from a reporting device to a consuming device via a communication channel of a communication network, wherein the consuming device that receives the health data from the reporting device sends a subscription request message including a subscription request to the reporting device, and the reporting device verifies the subscription request after receiving the subscription request message and establishes a communication channel to transmit the health data to the consuming device.
[0029] The advantages and advantageous embodiments described above for the system can equally be applied to the method, such that it can be referred to the above content. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0030] The inventive concept will subsequently be described in more detail with reference to the embodiments shown in the drawings. Herein:
[0031] Figure 1 A schematic diagram of a healthcare environment (e.g., a hospital) including a patient care device connected to a communication network is shown;
[0032] Figure 2 A schematic diagram of the communication between a consumer device and a reporting device for establishing a communication channel for transmitting health data from the reporting device to the consumer device is shown;
[0033] Figure 3 A schematic diagram of a backup process is shown; and
[0034] Figure 4 A schematic diagram of a healthcare environment having a plurality of device observation consumers (DOCs) interacting with a device observation reporter (DOR) is shown. DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0035] Figure 1 A schematic diagram of a healthcare environment 1 corresponding to an organization such as a hospital is shown.
[0036] The healthcare environment 1 may include different departments 10 each having a set of rooms 100, in which patient care devices (abbreviated as PCDs) (e.g., infusion devices for administering a liquid medicine to a patient) can be operated under the care of medical staff in different departments 10. For example, the department 10 may correspond to a general ward, an intensive care unit, an emergency room of a hospital or a specific department related to treatment services (e.g., oncology or pharmacy) and diagnostic services (e.g., radiology or cardiology).
[0037] The healthcare environment 1 includes an internal communication network 4 for providing data communication between different information systems in the healthcare environment 1. In particular, the communication network 4 may include a gateway 2, and a plurality of patient care devices 11 are connected to the gateway 2, and the gateway 2 is used to provide data communication to and from the patient care devices 11.
[0038] In particular, via the gateway 2, the patient care device 11 can be connected to a hospital information system 3, which is used to collect, process and distribute health data for information use within the healthcare environment 1, where, for example, medical staff can access the hospital information system 3 using a fixed workstation or a mobile computing device (e.g., a tablet computer, etc.) to obtain medical information related to a specific patient.
[0039] In particular, within the communication network 4, the gateway 2 can be used as a reporting device for providing the health data collected from the patient care device 11 to the hospital information system 3, and in particular can be used as a so-called device observation reporter (DOR), and the hospital information system 3 is used as a consuming device, in particular as a so-called device observation consumer (DOC). The gateway 2 collects and preprocesses the health data (for example, the operation data and patient data received from the patient care device 11), for example, to map and format the data received from the patient care device 11 according to a standardized syntax and semantics to transmit the health data to the hospital information system 3.
[0040] The transmission of the health data from the gateway 2 to the hospital information system 3 (in particular, the server of the hospital information system 3) is carried out via the communication channel 41. Since the static configuration of the communication channel 41 is cumbersome and involves operations by the IT administrator, and furthermore, may cause an interruption of the services of other devices within the communication network 4, therefore, a dynamic registration scheme is proposed herein that enables the dynamic establishment of the communication channel 41 when requested by the consuming device (in particular, the server of the hospital information system 3).
[0041] In particular, as Figure 2 schematically shown, in order to establish the communication channel 41, it is proposed that the server of the hospital information system 3 (used as a consuming device) sends a subscription request message A1 including a subscription request, whereby the gateway 2 (used as a reporting device) responds by sending a reply message A2. Both the subscription request message A1 and the reply message A2 are sent via the secure channel 40, for example, the secure channel can be established according to HTTPS. Herein, the message A2 is sent synchronously by the gateway 2, that is, the hospital information system 3 waits for the response A2 before doing other things.
[0042] The subscription request included in the subscription request message A1 includes information related to the establishment of the desired communication channel 41, and the information is in particular a unique identifier, network connection parameters (for example, the TCP / IP address / hostname and port of the server of the hospital information system 3 to be connected), a standard integration profile for communicating via the communication channel 41 (such as IHE IPEC, DEC, ACM, etc.), a specific refresh delay parameter, and the location in the healthcare environment 1 for collecting the health data and transmitting the health data to the server of the hospital information system 3. The gateway 2 verifies the subscription request and, after successful verification (which is indicated in the reply message A2), establishes the communication channel 41 to send a message A3 including the health data, so that the server of the hospital information system 3 is connected to the gateway 2, and thus can receive the health data collected from a specific group of patient care devices 11 via the gateway 2.
[0043] Since the establishment of the communication channel 41 is automatically carried out through negotiation between the consuming device (the server of the hospital information system 3) and the reporting device (the gateway 2), the installation of the server within the communication network 4 is easy and does not interrupt any services provided by the gateway 2 to other parties.
[0044] The communication channel 41 in this article can use a different protocol from the secure channel 40 and can be, for example, an MLLP channel.
[0045] Because of the negotiation between the consuming device and the reporting device in the case of a subscription request, only those health data related to a specific subgroup of patient care devices 11 (for example, patient care devices 11 located only in a specific area within the healthcare environment 1 such as a specific department 10 or a specific set of rooms 100 in a specific department 10) are sent to the consuming device, reducing the data load in the communication network 4 because the consuming device will only receive those health data it has subscribed to.
[0046] In addition, according to the subscription request, a specific refresh delay, that is, the period of data communication, can be set individually for the established communication channel 41, which makes it possible to further reduce the data load because less critical health data can be transmitted at a low repetition rate.
[0047] Furthermore, the proposed solution can improve the backup process in the case of a server failure in the hospital information system 3.
[0048] In particular, as Figure 3 schematically indicated, the hospital information system 3 can include redundant servers 30, 31. The redundant servers 30, 31 can be separate hardware components or can be implemented in software form as virtual servers. One server 30 is the primary server and the other server 31 is the secondary standby server that takes over in the case of a failure of the primary server 30. To collect health data from the gateway 2, the primary server 30 establishes a connection B1 during normal operation according to the scheme described above and in particular uses a unique identifier that uniquely identifies the connection. In the case of a failure of the primary server 30 (which can be detected within the hospital information system 3 through appropriate failure detection, including for example the exchange of so-called "keep-alive" messages between the server 30 and the server 31), the secondary server 31 sends a subscription request message A1 to the gateway 2 using the same unique identifier as previously used by the primary server 30 (as Figure 2As shown). The gateway 2 thus notices that another server 31 using the same unique identifier is arranged to take over from the primary server 30. Thereby, the gateway 2 sends a reply message A2 to the secondary server 31 and establishes a communication channel B2 to the secondary server 31 to provide health data to the secondary server 31 according to the identified subscriptions from now on. Thus, in the event of a failure of the primary server 30, the standby server 31 can be easily connected to the gateway 2. Thereby, the health data is sent to the secondary server 31 instead of the primary server 30, enabling the secondary server 31 to seamlessly take over the functions from the primary server 30. The servers 30, 31 share the same database reference, i.e., the backup server 31 receives the same data set that was previously sent to the server 30.
[0049] Figure 4 FIG. shows a schematic diagram of the setup of a healthcare environment 1, in which a plurality of device observation consumers (DOCs) 3 in the form of different PDMS / EMRs of a hospital information system, for example, communicate with a device observation reporter (DOR) in the form of a gateway 2 of a communication network 4. Both device observation consumers 3 herein have subscribed to the gateway 2 using the scheme described above Figure 2 Specifically, by sending respective subscription request messages A1 to the gateway 2 via a secure channel 40. Thereby, the gateway 2 responds with a reply message A2 and establishes a communication channel 41 to provide health data to the device observation consumers 3 according to the subscriptions of the device observation consumers 3.
[0050] To establish a subscription, each device observation consumer 3 sends a respective subscription message A1, which includes respective refresh delay parameters, a unique identifier, network connection parameters (e.g., IP address and port), information related to the integration profile to be used, and location information identifying a group of patient care devices that provide health data to the device observation consumer 3.
[0051] In the example, the device observation consumer 3 on the left has a unique identifier #1 and an IP address / port #1. As Figure 4 shown, the device observation consumer 3 sends a specific refresh delay #1, unique identifier #1, IP address / port #1, information about the integration profile #1 to be used, and location information A related to a group of patient care devices located in different rooms of different wards in the healthcare environment 1 using the subscription request message A1.
[0052] Similarly, the device observation consumer 3 on the right has a unique identifier #2 and an IP address / port #2. As Figure 4As shown, the device observer consumer 3 uses the subscription request message A1 to send a specific refresh delay #2, a unique identifier #2, an IP address / port #2, information about the integration profile #2 to be used, and location information B related to a group of patient care devices located in different rooms of different wards, for example, in the healthcare environment 1.
[0053] Therefore, the gateway 2 establishes a separate communication channel 41 to each device observer consumer 3 to provide a separate set of health data to the specific device observer consumer 3 according to a specific integration profile, thereby providing data from the patient care devices located within the areas A and B identified by the location information of the subscription request message A1.
[0054] The concept of the present invention is not limited to the above embodiments, but can be implemented in completely different embodiments in completely different ways.
[0055] In particular, the subscription scheme proposed herein can be used between any reporting device and consumer device within a healthcare environment and is not limited to the specific entities mentioned herein.
[0056] The subscription request can include additional or different information as indicated herein.
[0057] In addition, the channel can be established according to different technologies and protocols and is not limited to the protocols mentioned herein.
[0058] In particular, the following scheme is proposed herein.
[0059] 1. A system for transmitting health data in a healthcare environment, comprising:
[0060] - A communication network for transmitting health data in the healthcare environment,
[0061] - A reporting device for transmitting health data via the communication network, and
[0062] - A consumer device for receiving health data from the reporting device via a communication channel of the communication network,
[0063] Characterized in that
[0064] The consumer device for receiving health data from the reporting device is configured to send a subscription request message including a subscription request to the reporting device, and the reporting device is configured to verify the subscription request after receiving the subscription request message and establish the communication channel to transmit health data to the consumer device.
[0065] 2. The system according to Solution 1, wherein the consumer device is configured to send the subscription request message via a secure channel different from the communication channel.
[0066] 3. The system according to Solution 2, wherein the secure channel is a channel based on HTTPS.
[0067] 4. The system according to one of Solutions 1 to 3, wherein the communication channel is a channel based on TCP / IP, in particular a channel based on MLLP.
[0068] 5. The system according to one of the foregoing solutions, wherein the reporting device is configured to send a reply message to the consumer device (3) after receiving the subscription request message to verify the subscription request.
[0069] 6. The system according to one of the foregoing solutions, wherein the reporting device is a device observer configured to receive health data from at least one patient care device located in the healthcare environment.
[0070] 7. The system according to Solution 6, wherein the consumer device is a device observer consumer configured to receive health data from the device observer.
[0071] 8. The system according to one of the foregoing solutions, wherein the consumer device is a hospital information system.
[0072] 9. The system according to one of the foregoing solutions, wherein the subscription request includes information related to at least one of a unique identifier, network connection parameters, integration profile, refresh delay, and location in the healthcare environment.
[0073] 10. The system according to Solution 9, wherein the information related to the location identifies the location of the patient care device from which health data is to be transmitted to the consumer device.
[0074] 11. A method for transmitting health data in a healthcare environment, comprising:
[0075] - Transmitting health data from a reporting device to a consumer device via a communication channel of a communication network,
[0076] characterized in that
[0077] The consumer device for receiving health data from the reporting device sends a subscription request message including a subscription request to the reporting device, and the reporting device verifies the subscription request after receiving the subscription request message and establishes the communication channel to transmit health data to the consumer device.
[0078] List of reference numerals
[0079] 1 Healthcare environment (hospital)
[0080] 10 Department
[0081] 100 Room
[0082] 11 Patient care device
[0083] 2 Reporting entity (gateway)
[0084] 3 Consumer entity (hospital information system)
[0085] 30 Main server
[0086] 31 Secondary server
[0087] 4 Hospital communication network
[0088] 40 Secure channel
[0089] 41 Communication channel
[0090] A1, A2, A3 Messages
[0091] B1, B2 Connections
Claims
1. A system for transmitting health data in a healthcare environment (1), comprising: - A communication network (4) for transmitting health data in a healthcare environment (1), - A reporting device (2) for transmitting health data via the communication network (4), and - A consumer device (3) for receiving health data from the reporting device (2) via a communication channel (41) of the communication network (4), wherein the consumer device (3) for receiving health data from the reporting device (2) is configured to send a subscription request message (A1) including a subscription request to the reporting device (2), and the reporting device (3) is configured to verify the subscription request after receiving the subscription request message (A1) and establish the communication channel (41) to transmit health data to the consumer device (3), characterized in that the subscription request includes information related to at least one of a unique identifier, network connection parameters, an integration profile, a refresh delay, and a location in the healthcare environment (1), the information related to the location identifies the location of a patient care device (11) from which health data is to be transmitted to the consumer device (3), and the refresh delay defines a period for refreshing health data, and the period of data communication is set separately for the established communication channel (41).
2. The system according to claim 1, wherein The consumer device (3) is configured to send the subscription request message (A1) via a secure channel (40) different from the communication channel (41).
3. The system according to claim 2, wherein The secure channel (40) is a channel based on HTTPS.
4. The system according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein The communication channel is a channel based on TCP / IP, particularly a channel based on MLLP.
5. The system according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein The reporting device (2) is configured to send a reply message (A2) to the consumer device (3) after receiving the subscription request message (A1) to verify the subscription request.
6. The system according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein The reporting device (2) is a device observer configured to receive health data from at least one patient care device (11) located in the healthcare environment (1).
7. The system according to claim 6, wherein The consumer device (3) is a device observer consumer configured to receive health data from the device observer.
8. The system according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein The consumer device (3) is a hospital information system.
9. A method for transmitting health data in a healthcare environment (1), comprising: - Transmitting health data from the reporting device (2) to the consumer device (3) via the communication channel (41) of the communication network (4), wherein the consumer device (3) for receiving health data from the reporting device (2) sends a subscription request message (A1) including a subscription request to the reporting device (2), and the reporting device (3) verifies the subscription request after receiving the subscription request message (A1) and establishes the communication channel (41) to transmit health data to the consumer device (3), characterized in that the subscription request includes information related to at least one of a unique identifier, network connection parameters, an integration profile, a refresh delay, and a location in the healthcare environment (1), the information related to the location identifies the location of a patient care device (11) from which health data is to be transmitted to the consumer device (3), and The refresh delay defines the period for refreshing health data, and the period of data communication is set separately for the established communication channel (41).