Dynamically adjustable frame rate from medical device controller

Abstract

To provide a medical device monitoring system and a medical device monitoring method that reduce the computer network load, that timely report high-priority information such as alarms, and that provide information at intervals requested by users.SOLUTION: A method comprises extracting information from screen images from medical device controllers, and intelligently varying rates at which the screen images are fetched from the respective medical device controllers. The rates at which the screen images are fetched are automatically varied based on information available to a server, such as available network bandwidth, an available level of network congestion, an available number of medical device controllers co-located at a single medical institution or on a given local area network (LAN), an available alarm status of a medical device controller and / or available historical timing information regarding use of medical devices connected to the medical device controllers.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 4

Description

[Technical field]

[0001] CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS This application claims the benefit of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 16 / 365,293, filed Mar. 26, 2019, entitled “Dynamically Adjustable Frame Rate from Medical Device Controller,” the entire contents of which are incorporated by reference herein for all purposes.

[0002] Technical Field The present invention relates to remote monitoring of medical devices, and more particularly to dynamically adjusting the frame rate at which a screen image displayed by a medical device control device is required for optical character recognition (OCR) processing of the image. [Background technology]

[0003] Related Technology Many medical devices, such as some intravascular blood pumps, e.g., the Impella® 2.5 heart pump available from Abiomed, Inc. of Danvers, Massachusetts, are connected to an external medical device controller that collects and displays operational data about the medical device, such as cardiac signal levels, battery temperature, blood flow rate, and tubing integrity. An exemplary medical device controller is available from Abiomed, Inc. under the trade name Automated Impella Controller®. These medical device controllers generate alarms when operational data values ​​exceed predetermined values ​​or ranges, e.g., when a leak or loss of suction is detected. These medical device controllers include a video display screen as a human interface on which operational data and / or alarms are displayed.

[0004] To facilitate remote monitoring by medical personnel to ensure effectiveness and patient safety, some such medical device controllers may be coupled, often via a computer network including a wireless segment, to a central server that may be accessed by a monitoring station that may display real-time operational data and / or alarms on a display screen for viewing by medical personnel.

[0005] Servers request and receive images of what is displayed on the screen of a medical device controller. Some servers use optical character recognition (OCR) technology to parse the images and extract text information such as heart pump serial numbers, blood flow rates, and warning message text.

[0006] However, network congestion and intermittent wireless network connections can make it difficult or impossible for the server to fetch images from medical device controllers in a timely manner, which can lead to missed or delayed notifications such as alarms. Furthermore, each OCR request issued by the server incurs a cost. This cost creates a tension between low-cost operation (infrequent image analysis, which risks delays in reporting information) and low-latency information reporting (frequent image analysis). Summary of the Invention

[0007] Summary of Aspects One aspect of the present invention provides a medical device monitoring system, the medical device monitoring system including a server. The server is configured to automatically request and receive images. The server is configured to request and receive images from each medical device controller of a plurality of medical device controllers over a computer network. Each image includes content displayed on a screen of the medical device controller. The server is also configured to subject at least a portion of each image to optical character recognition. The server is further configured to dynamically adjust a rate at which the server requests images from each medical device controller.

[0008] In any aspect, the server may be configured to dynamically adjust the rate based on information about the medical device controller.

[0009] In any embodiment, the information relating to the medical device controller may be provided by the medical device controller.

[0010] In any aspect, the information relating to the medical device controller may include information regarding an alarm status of the medical device controller.

[0011] In any aspect, the information relating to the medical device controller may include information regarding operating parameters.

[0012] In any aspect, the information regarding the medical device controller may include information regarding a power source for the medical device controller.

[0013] In any embodiment, the information related to the medical device controller may include information regarding the number of users simultaneously monitoring the medical device controller.

[0014] In any embodiment, the server may be configured to dynamically adjust the rates based on information about the computer network.

[0015] In any embodiment, the information regarding the computer network may include information regarding the load on the computer network.

[0016] In any embodiment, the information regarding the computer network may include historical information regarding the reliability of the computer network.

[0017] In any embodiment, the information related to the computer network may include information related to the signal strength of wireless network connections available to the medical device controller.

[0018] In any embodiment, the information about the computer network may include information about the number of other medical device controllers collocated with the medical device controller at the facility.

[0019] In any aspect, the server may be configured to dynamically adjust the rate based on information about the workload imposed on the server.

[0020] In any aspect, the server may be configured to dynamically adjust the rates based on input from a human user.

[0021] In any aspect, the server may be configured to dynamically adjust the rates based on historical information.

[0022] In any aspect, the historical information may include historical information regarding the timing of connections of medical devices to the medical device controller.

[0023] In any embodiment, the historical information may include historical information regarding the accuracy of optical character recognition of at least one previous image.

[0024] In any aspect, the server may be further configured to dynamically adjust the number of servers requesting optical character recognition of at least a portion of each image. Another aspect of the invention provides a method for monitoring medical devices. The method includes automatically requesting and receiving images of content displayed on a screen of a medical device controller. The images are requested and received over a computer network. The images are requested and received by each medical device controller of a plurality of medical device controllers. The method also includes automatically performing optical character recognition on at least a portion of each image and automatically dynamically adjusting a rate at which the images are requested.

[0025] In any aspect, information related to the medical device controller may be received. Automatically dynamically adjusting the rate at which images are requested may involve automatically dynamically adjusting the rate based on the information related to the medical device controller.

[0026] In any aspect, information about the computer network may be received. Automatically dynamically adjusting the rate at which images are requested may involve automatically dynamically adjusting the rate based on information about the computer network.

[0027] In any aspect, information regarding the workload on the server may be received. Automatically dynamically adjusting the rate at which images are requested may involve automatically dynamically adjusting the rate based on information regarding the workload on the server.

[0028] In any aspect, input from a human user may be received. Automatically dynamically adjusting the rate at which images are requested may involve automatically dynamically adjusting the rate based on input from a human user.

[0029] Yet another aspect of the invention provides a non-transitory computer readable medium, the medium encoded with instructions that, when executed by a processor, establish a process for performing a computer implemented method of monitoring a medical device, the process including a process for automatically requesting and receiving images of content displayed on a screen of a medical device controller. The images are requested and received from each medical device controller of a plurality of medical device controllers over a computer network. The process is configured to automatically subject at least a portion of each image to optical character recognition. The process is configured to automatically dynamically adjust a rate at which images are requested. [Brief description of the drawings]

[0030] The present invention will be more fully understood from the following detailed description of specific embodiments taken in conjunction with the drawings.

[0031] [Figure 1] 1 is a perspective view of an exemplary conventional medical device control device and an exemplary conventional medical device coupled to the medical device control device, in this example a heart pump, according to the prior art; FIG. [Diagram 2] 2A-2C are diagrams illustrating exemplary virtual display screen contents that may be displayed on the screen of the medical device control device of FIG. 1 according to the prior art. [Diagram 3] FIG. 3 is a schematic block diagram of the salient components of a medical device monitoring system for collecting, storing, and retrieving operational data relating to multiple medical device control devices from multiple medical device control devices, such as the medical device control devices of FIGS. 1 and 2, in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention. [Figure 4] 4 is a flow chart that generally illustrates a method for monitoring medical devices, such as a method performed by the server of FIG. 3, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. [Diagram 5] 5 is a flow chart that generally illustrates steps involved in a sub-process of the method of FIG. 4 of automatically and dynamically adjusting the rate at which images are requested based on information about a medical device or control device, in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

[0032] Detailed Description of Specific Embodiments Aspects of the present invention provide a medical device monitoring system and method that extracts information from screen images from medical device controllers and intelligently varies the rate at which screen images are fetched from each medical device controller so as to reduce computer network load, timely report high priority information such as alarms, and provide information at intervals requested by a user. The rate at which screen images are fetched is automatically varied based on information available to the server, such as available network bandwidth, level of network congestion, number of medical device controllers co-located at a single medical institution or on a given local area network (LAN), alarm status of the medical device controllers, and / or historical timing information regarding usage of medical devices connected to the medical device controllers.

[0033] FIG. 1 is a perspective view of an exemplary conventional medical device controller 100 and an exemplary conventional medical device 102, in this example a heart pump, coupled to the medical device controller 100. In the example shown in FIG. 1, the medical device controller 100 is an Automated Impella Controller® manufactured by Abiomed, Inc. of Danvers, Massachusetts, and the heart pump 102 is an Impella® 2.5 heart pump also available from Abiomed, Inc., although any suitable medical device controller may be used. In some cases, a medical device and its associated medical device controller are combined. Such a combination is referred to herein simply as a medical device controller.

[0034] The medical device controller 100 includes a display screen 104 on which it displays operational data regarding the medical device 102, such as cardiac signal levels, battery temperature, blood flow, and tubing integrity. As discussed in more detail herein, the medical device controller 100 may be connected to a computer network whereby images of the content displayed on the screen 104 may be transmitted to a remote server (not shown).

[0035] Figure 2 illustrates exemplary virtual display screen content 200 that may be displayed on the screen 104 of the medical device controller 100 of Figure 1. For example, the display screen content may include heart pump type ("Impella 5.0") 202, heart pump serial number ("120703") 204, warning / error messages 206, placement signal 207, current heart pump speed (performance) setting ("P-0") 208, heart pump motor current value 210, current or average blood flow 212, and minimum and maximum blood flow 213. The display screen content 200 is typically pixelated.

[0036] FIG. 3 is a schematic block diagram of the main components of a medical device monitoring system 300 for collecting, storing, and retrieving operational data from and relating to a plurality of medical device controllers 100. For simplicity, only the medical device controllers 100 are shown in FIG. 3, and no separate medical devices are shown. Although three medical device controllers 100 are shown, other numbers of medical device controllers 100 may be used. Each medical device controller 100 is optionally connectable to a computer network 302 via a remote link module 304. Each medical device controller 100 is configured to automatically and repeatedly retrieve status information relating to the connected medical device and display the status information on a display screen 104 (FIG. 1). As discussed above, FIG. 2 illustrates respective virtual display screen contents 200 that may be displayed on the screen 104 of any given medical device controller 100.

[0037] The server 306 is configured to automatically periodically or on demand, typically about every 20 seconds, request and receive images of the content displayed on the display screen 104 of each medical device controller 100. The requests and images are transmitted over the computer network 302. The images may be transmitted in one or more messages encoded as a video frame or a sequence of video frames. The video frames may include, for example, a pixelated copy of the image displayed on the display screen 104 of the medical device controller 100.

[0038] The server 306 is configured to process the received frames (images). As described above, the server 306 parses the image and extracts text information, such as the heart pump serial number, blood flow rate, warning message text, etc., by optical character recognition (OCR) of portions of the image. The server 306 may also parse the image and extract graphical information, such as a power icon, and compare this graphical information to a predefined pixel pattern and / or color. The server 306 may include an OCR engine, or the server 306 may communicate with an external OCR engine 310, for example, via the computer network 302. The server 306 may then use the recognized text to automatically verify the serial number or other identifier of the medical device controller 100, the operating parameters of the medical device controller 100, whether an alarm has been issued by one of the medical device controllers 100, etc.

[0039] The data store 308 is configured to store frames (images) of one or more media files, particularly MP4 videos or other suitable types of media files, and the server 306 is configured to automatically store received frames (images) in the data store 308. The data store 308 records screen images received by the server 306 for later playback, such as in response to a request from one of several monitoring stations 312. The monitoring stations 312 may use cloud-based technology to securely and remotely display images of the screen 104 of the medical device controller 100 to physicians and hospital staff anywhere there is an Internet connection. An exemplary remote monitoring system is available under the trade name Impella Connect® Online Device Management System, available from Abiomed, Inc., Danvers, Massachusetts.

[0040] The data store 308 is configured to provide requested portions of the stored media files in response to a request to provide them. The data store 308 thereby supports playback of status information of the medical device controller 100. For example, the data store 308 may provide one or more frames (images) of a video stored in the media file for display to a user. The server 306 may also be configured to provide status information regarding one or more of the medical device controllers 100 to a monitoring station of the monitoring stations 312 based on images received by the server 306 in real time and / or based on historical information maintained in the data store 308.

[0041] However, congestion on the computer network 302, such as congestion on computer networks within a medical institution, and unreliable wireless network connections can create an environment in which it is difficult for the server 306 to request and receive images in a timely manner from the medical device controller 100. Furthermore, each image is processed separately by the OCR engine 310, and each OCR request issued by the server 306 incurs a cost.

[0042] Aspects of the present invention solve these problems by automatically and dynamically adjusting the rate at which the server 306 requests images from the medical device controller 100. Optionally or alternatively, the server 306 may send (possibly different) rates to each medical device controller 100, and in response, each medical device controller 100 transmits its images to the server 306 at the instructed rate without an explicit request from the server 306 for each image. For ease of explanation, in this specification and the appended claims, dynamically adjusting the rate at which the server 306 "requests images" encompasses both (a) the server 306 explicitly requesting each image, and (b) the server 306 instructing the rate at which the medical device controller 100 should transmit images, without an explicit request for each image.

[0043] The server 306 may request images at different rates from different ones of the medical device controllers 100, and the server 306 may dynamically adjust the rates independently for different ones of the medical device controllers 100. Exemplary factors used by the server 306 to automatically determine the image rate from a particular medical device controller 100 or group of medical device controllers 100 include the level of network congestion, whether the medical device controller 100 is in alarm, the severity of the alarm, whether a heart pump 102 or other medical devices are connected to a particular medical device controller 100, the patient's condition, and user commands.

[0044] The server 306 may automatically and dynamically adjust the rate at which images are requested based on various categories of information, such as: (a) information from the medical device controller 100; (b) information about the computer network 302; (c) information about the server 306 or other servers, such as the OCR engine 310; and (d) information from or about a human user or patient of the system 300. Some of the information in any of the categories may be historical. Examples from each of these categories are provided below. Different and / or other categories of information may be used as needed to fulfill or address a task objective.

[0045] 4 is a flow chart that generally illustrates a method for monitoring a medical device 100. The server 306 (FIG. 3) may perform the method. In operation 400, the method requests and receives images ("received images"). The received images are requested and received via a computer network 302. The received images are requested and received by each medical device controller 100 of the multiple medical device controllers. Each received image includes content displayed on the screen 104 of the medical device controller 100.

[0046] At 402, for each received image, at least a portion of the image is optically character recognized via a service call to the OCR engine 310 to generate a text result. At 404, a first text result is extracted from the text result. The first text result is extracted from a portion of the image that includes information about the medical device controller 100 and / or a medical device, such as a heart pump, connected to the medical device controller 100. At 406, information about the medical device controller 100 is automatically ascertained from the first text result.

[0047] Optionally or alternatively, one or more portions of the received image may be analyzed, for example, by comparing those portions pixel by pixel with a predefined pixel pattern and / or a predefined set of colors, to automatically determine information about the medical device controller 100 and / or medical devices connected to the medical device controller 100. For example, a power icon 222 in the image may be compared to predefined patterns to automatically determine whether the medical device controller 100 is currently powered by a battery or by mains power.

[0048] At 408, the rate at which images are requested from the medical device controller 100 is automatically and dynamically adjusted based on information about the medical device controller 100 or associated medical devices 102. By "dynamically" we mean that the rate is changed over time, not just once. The rate may be changed as frequently as the server 306 detects a reason to change the rate, or it may be changed less frequently.

[0049] An example of the first category of information that may be automatically ascertained from an image, i.e., information received from the medical device controller 100, and how this information affects the image request rate is shown in Table 1. For example, if OCR of the current image from the medical device controller 100 fails, the server 306 may change the interval to zero to immediately request a new image until at least one image or a predetermined number (e.g., three) of consecutive images have been successfully OCR'd, after which the interval may be changed back to a default value or a value determined by other information. However, if OCR of the predetermined number of consecutive images fails, the server 306 should increase the interval and generate an error.

[0050] The server 306 receives information from the medical device controller 100 when a significant event occurs, such as when the medical device controller 100 is powered on or when the heart pump 102 is connected to the medical device controller 100. The server 306 may be configured to store information such as the time of these events. The server 306 may further be configured to calculate statistics, such as a calculated average time between when the medical device controller 100 is powered on and when the heart pump 102 or other medical devices are connected to the medical device controller 100, and store the statistical or historical information. After a statistically significant number of samples have been collected by the server 306, upon detecting that the medical device controller 100 is powered on, the server 306 may set the image request interval to a relatively high value, such as about 1 minute, for about 70% of the average time until the heart pump 104 is connected, and then automatically switch to a default interval, such as about 20 seconds, or another predetermined value.

[0051] The example of Table 1 is for a particular type of medical device controller 100 and a particular type of medical device (heart pump). Other types of medical device controllers and medical devices may provide different types of information and thus may have different types of triggers and different intervals. Thus, the contents of Table 1 should not be considered as a limitation on the breadth of this disclosure or the appended claims, as well as other tables contained herein.

[0052] Table 1. Example information for medical device control devices TIFF2025072365000002.tif152167

[0053] The server 306 is configured to automatically dynamically adjust the rate at which images are requested from the medical device controller 100 based on information about the medical device controller 100. Each entry in Table 1 includes a name of the information, a trigger condition, and an interval. If the server 306 detects a condition in the information that satisfies the trigger condition of an entry in Table 1, the server 306 may change the interval at which the server 306 requests images from the corresponding medical device controller 100 to the interval value in the table entry. The server 306 may use additional rules to control the value to which the image request interval is changed and / or how often the image request interval is changed. If multiple conditions are met, the server 306 may change the image request interval to the shortest interval of the conditions met or to the longest interval of the conditions met based on the additional rules.

[0054] If the conditions in the table are not met, the server 306 may revert to a default interval, such as about 20 seconds. Some of these conditions may cause the image request interval to be changed to a value greater than the default value. For example, if no blood pump is currently connected to a given medical device controller 100, the image request interval may be made relatively large since the medical device controller 100 is essentially not currently being used and therefore is not currently providing any particularly useful information. On the other hand, if, for example, the alarm text 206 indicates a problem, the image request interval may be made relatively small to cause the display on the monitoring station 312 to be refreshed more frequently so that personnel monitoring the monitoring station 312 receive more up-to-date information.

[0055] Optionally, the server 306 may perform validation tests on the text results returned by the OCR engine 310. For example, if a field such as the mean blood flow rate 212 (FIG. 2) is expected to be numeric, the returned OCR text may be checked and accepted only if it contains only digits and any decimal points. Numeric fields may be range checked. For example, if it is known in advance that the value of each alignment signal 207 must be in the range 0-100, the returned OCR text may be compared to this range. If a field fails its respective validation test, the interval may be reduced, for example to 5 seconds, until the image is OCRed to obtain a valid value for the field.

[0056] While the examples in Table 1 are simple conditions, the server 306 may automatically determine the image request interval using a combination of conditions. For example, if the average blood flow rate 212 is less than 1 or greater than 8 and the minimum blood flow rate 213 is less than 1, the server 306 may change the image request interval to 1 second, or less than the interval for either of the two conditions separately.

[0057] Other examples of the first category of information, i.e., information received from the medical device controller 100, include any information available in the image, such as pump performance level 208, any particular alarms 206, local time 224, and pump serial number 204. Pump performance level 208 is an indication of an operating parameter set by a user of the medical device controller 100, such as via a user interface implemented using the display screen 104 on the medical device controller 100, in this case essentially the desired pump speed.

[0058] 5 is a flow chart that generally illustrates a sub-operation of operation 408 (FIG. 4), i.e., automatically and dynamically adjusting the rate at which images are requested based on information about the medical device or controller 100. At 500, a table, such as Table 1, is scanned for an entry whose name matches information about the medical device controller 100. Recall that information was automatically ascertained from the first OCR text result (operation 406 in FIG. 4) and / or one or more portions of the received image, such as the power icon, were analyzed to determine information about the medical device controller 100.

[0059] If a matching table entry is found at 502, control proceeds to 504. In general, entries in Table 1 can be characterized as either increasing the interval above the default or decreasing the interval below the default. In general, table entries that increase the interval value above the default value may be associated with relatively "relaxed" situations where rapid updates are not needed or desirable, such as because no pumps are connected to the medical device controller 100 or network congestion requires less frequent updates. On the other hand, table entries that decrease the interval value below the default value may be associated with relatively "tense" situations where rapid updates are needed, such as because the medical device controller 100 is alarming.

[0060] If all matching table entries increase the spacing above the default value, the overall situation may be deemed mitigated and the maximum spacing value may be selected. In another, more conservative aspect, the minimum spacing value may be selected.

[0061] If all matching table entries reduce the spacing below the default value, the overall situation may be considered tense and the minimum spacing value may be selected to correspond to the most severe problem represented by the matching table entries.

[0062] If at least one matching table entry increases the interval above the default value and at least one matching table entry decreases the interval below the default value, one or more additional rules may be used to determine whether to increase or decrease the interval value. In some embodiments, each table entry has a priority value (not shown), and the matching table entry with the highest priority value is selected. Thus, for example, if some information indicates that a short image request interval value is appropriate, but a heart pump is not connected to the corresponding medical device controller 100, there is no point in quickly fetching images from the medical device controller 100, and a long interval value may be selected. This strategy may be implemented as follows:

[0063] The shortest interval value of all matching table entries is temporarily stored at 504. Similarly, the longest interval value of all matching table entries is temporarily stored at 506. At 508, either the shortest interval value or the longest interval value is selected from the temporary storage based on one or more additional rules.

[0064] If any matching table entries reduce the spacing below the default, the additional rules may cause the shortest spacing value to be selected, or the additional rules may select a table entry based on a priority value or according to other selection criteria. If there are no matching table entries that reduce the spacing below the default value, the additional rules may cause the longest spacing value to be selected.

[0065] At 510, the selected interval value is used to set the image request interval for the medical device controller 100. At 512, information about the next medical device controller is analyzed.

[0066] Returning to FIG. 4, at 410, information about the computer network 320 is automatically ascertained. For example, the server 306 may query the computer network 306 or use tools such as ping to measure the level of network congestion, utilization, and / or available bandwidth. Note that the computer network 320 may include several public and / or private networks, such as wired and / or wireless private networks within a medical institution, public and private wide area networks such as the Internet, public and private cellular networks, and private networks located within the premises of the service provider that houses the server 306. Each of these networks or segments may have its own set of characteristics, and different medical device controllers 100 may be coupled to the server 306 via different networks and segments. Thus, for each medical device controller 100, or for each group of co-located medical device controllers 100, the server 306 may select to use the characteristics of the most restrictive network or segment in the path to that medical device controller 100 or group.

[0067] The server 306 may store information indicating which wide area networks, local networks, and / or network segments each medical device controller 100 is connected to and / or which network components or segments computer network traffic travels through. This information may be extracted from header information in network packets received by the server 306 from the medical device controller 100 using a traceroute tool or other well-known tools and techniques.

[0068] With information regarding which computer networks, segments, etc., the various medical device controllers 100 are connected to, the server 306 can calculate the number of medical device controllers 100 connected to any given computer network, segment, router, etc. With this information, together with information regarding the bandwidth of the networks and segments between the server 306 and the medical device controllers 100, the server 306 can calculate the interval that is sustainable across the available infrastructure. In particular, the server 306 may calculate the aggregate interval that is sustainable across the available infrastructure and then divide that aggregate interval among the medical device controllers 100 based on information regarding the individual medical device controllers 100.

[0069] The server 306 may store historical information regarding the reliability of computer network connections to various medical device controllers 100, using relatively short intervals for historically unreliable networks. Each medical device controller (MDC) 100 may report the medical institution in which it is installed. This information may have been entered into the memory of the medical device controller 100 by a human, such as through a user interface implemented on the screen 104. The server 306 may use information about which medical institution hosts which medical device controller 100 to predict information such as network reliability for a newly connected medical device controller 100.

[0070] An example of the second category of information that may be automatically ascertained by the server 306, ie, information about the computer network 302, and how this information affects the image request rate, ie, the triggers and corresponding intervals, is shown in Table 2.

[0071] Table 2: Example information about computer networks TIFF2025072365000003.tif133167

[0072] At 412, the rate at which images are requested from the medical device controller 100 is automatically and dynamically adjusted based on information about the computer network 302 in a manner similar to that discussed with respect to Table 1 and FIG. 5, mutatis mutandis.

[0073] An example of a third category of information that may be automatically ascertained by the server 306, i.e., information about the server 306 or other servers such as the OCR engine 310, and how this information affects the image request rate, i.e., the triggers and corresponding intervals, is shown in Table 3.

[0074] Table 3. Example information about servers and server environments TIFF2025072365000004.tif49167

[0075] At 414, the server 306 automatically ascertains information about the server 306 and, optionally, associated servers (some not shown), such as the OCR engine 310. At 416, the rate at which images are requested from the medical device controller 100 is automatically dynamically adjusted based on information about the servers, including the server 306, in a manner similar to that discussed with respect to Tables 1 and 2 and FIG. 5, mutatis mutandis. Optionally, if a server, such as the server 306 or the OCR engine 310, is found to be busy beyond a predetermined threshold, such as about 70%, another copy of the server may be created, for example using virtual machine technology, and the workload may be divided among the available servers. Conversely, if a server is found to be less busy than a predetermined threshold, such as about 40%, the server may be terminated, and the workload of the terminated server may be distributed among the remaining servers.

[0076] An example of a fourth category of information that may be ascertained by the server 306, i.e., information from or about users or patients of the system 300, and how this information affects the image request rate, i.e., triggers and corresponding intervals, is shown in Table 4. As noted above, each monitoring station (MS) 312 displays information about one or more user-selected medical device controllers (MDCs) 100. It may be assumed that one user accesses each monitoring station 312. Thus, the number of monitoring stations 312 is equal to the number of monitoring users.

[0077] Table 4. Exemplary user inputs and user information TIFF2025072365000005.tif77167

[0078] Returning to FIG. 4 , at 418, input (commands) from a user is received and forwarded to the server 306, such as by the server 306 or by one of the monitoring stations 312. The user input may, for example, designate a particular medical device controller 100 as “Important” or “Critical”. Similarly, the user input may designate a particular patient as “Critical”. The user input ("Monitor") may include a user-specified interval. Each monitoring station 312 may monitor one or more medical device controllers 312. The server 306 may provide information to the monitoring stations 312 as described herein so that the monitoring stations 312 can display this information to their respective users, or the server 306 may be informed by the monitoring stations 312 or another server (not shown) of which monitoring stations 312 are monitoring which medical device controllers 100. In either case, the server 306 stores information indicating the number of monitoring stations 312 monitoring each medical device controller 100. The server 306 may use this information and / or other information, mutatis mutandis, to automatically and dynamically adjust image request rates to individual medical device controllers 100, as shown at 420 in FIG 4, in a manner similar to that discussed with respect to Tables 1-3 and FIG 5.

[0079] Although the present invention has been described through the above exemplary embodiments, modifications to and variations of the exemplary embodiments may be made without departing from the inventive concept disclosed herein. For example, certain parameter values ​​such as interval times and triggers may be described in connection with the disclosed embodiments within the scope of the present invention, but the values ​​of all parameters may vary over a wide range to suit various applications. Unless otherwise indicated in the context or understood by one of ordinary skill in the art, terms such as "about" mean within ±20%.

[0080] As used herein, including the appended claims, the term "and / or" used in connection with a list of items means one or more of the items in the list, i.e., at least one of the items in the list, but not necessarily all of the items in the list. As used herein, including the appended claims, the term "or" used in connection with a list of items means one or more of the items in the list, i.e., at least one of the items in the list, but not necessarily all of the items in the list. "Or" does not mean "exclusive or."

[0081] Although aspects of the embodiments may be described with reference to flowcharts and / or block diagrams, the functions, operations, decisions, etc. of all or a portion of each block, or combinations of blocks, may be combined, separated into separate operations, or performed in other orders. All or a portion of each block, module, or combinations thereof may be implemented as computer program instructions (e.g., software), hardware (e.g., combinatorial logic, application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), field programmable gate array (FPGA), processor or other hardware), firmware, or a combination thereof.

[0082] The server 306, or portions thereof, may be implemented by one or more processors that execute instructions stored in memory or are controlled by instructions stored in memory. Each processor may be a general-purpose processor such as a central processing unit (CPU), a graphic processing unit (GPU), a digital signal processor (DSP), a special-purpose processor, or the like, or a combination thereof, as appropriate.

[0083] The memory may be random access memory (RAM), read only memory (ROM), flash memory or any other memory, or combination thereof, suitable for storing control software or other instructions and data. The instructions that define the functionality of the present invention may be delivered to the processor in many forms, including, but not limited to, information permanently stored on a tangible, non-transitory, non-writeable storage medium (e.g., a read only memory device within the computer such as a ROM, or a device readable by a computer I / O attachment such as a CD-ROM or DVD disk), information mutably stored on a tangible, non-transitory, writeable storage medium (e.g., floppy disks, removable flash memory, and hard drives), or information communicated to the computer via a communications medium, including a wired or wireless computer network. Additionally, although aspects may be described with reference to various exemplary data structures, the system may be embodied using a variety of data structures.

[0084] Aspects of the disclosure, or portions thereof, may be combined in ways not described above and / or not expressly claimed. In addition, the embodiments disclosed herein may suitably be practiced in the absence of any element not specifically disclosed herein. Thus, the present invention should not be considered as limited to the disclosed embodiments.

Claims

1. 300 medical device monitoring systems, including: A server (306) configured to automatically request and receive, via a computer network (302), from each medical device control device (100) of a plurality of medical device control devices, an image (200) of content displayed on a screen (104) of the medical device control device, the server (306) being further configured to subject at least a portion of each image to optical character recognition and to dynamically adjust a rate at which the server requests the images.

2. 2. The system of claim 1, wherein the server is configured to dynamically adjust the rate based on information about the medical device controller (202, 204, 206, 207, 208, 210, 212, 213).

3. The system of claim 2 , wherein the information regarding the medical device controller is provided by the medical device controller.

4. The system of claim 3 , wherein the information regarding the medical device controller includes information regarding an alarm status of the medical device controller.

5. The system of claim 3 , wherein the information about the medical device control device includes information about operating parameters (207, 208, 210, 212, 213).

6. The system of claim 3 , wherein the information about the medical device controller includes information about a power source for the medical device controller.

7. The system of claim 2 , wherein the information about the medical device controller includes information about a number of users simultaneously monitoring the medical device controller.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein the server is configured to dynamically adjust the rate based on information about the computer network.

9. 10. The system of claim 8, wherein the information about the computer network includes information about a load on the computer network.

10. 10. The system of claim 8, wherein the information about the computer network includes historical information about the reliability of the computer network.

11. The system of claim 8 , wherein the information about the computer network includes information about signal strength of wireless network connections available to the medical device controller.

12. 10. The system of claim 8, wherein the information about the computer network includes information about a number of other medical device controllers collocated with the medical device controller at a facility.

13. 2. The system of claim 1, wherein the server is configured to dynamically adjust the rate based on information regarding a workload imposed on the server.

14. 10. The system of claim 1, wherein the server is configured to dynamically adjust the rate based on input from a human user.

15. The system of claim 1 , wherein the server is configured to dynamically adjust the rate based on historical information.

16. 16. The system of claim 15, wherein the historical information includes historical information regarding timing of connections of medical devices to the medical device controller.

17. 16. The system of claim 15, wherein the historical information includes historical information regarding accuracy of the optical character recognition of at least one previous image.

18. 2. The system of claim 1, wherein the server is further configured to dynamically adjust a number of servers requesting optical character recognition of the at least the portion of each image.

19. A method for monitoring a medical device, comprising the steps of: automatically requesting and receiving (400) an image (200) of the content displayed on a screen (104) of each medical device control device (100) of a plurality of medical device control devices via a computer network (302); subjecting at least a portion of each image to automatic optical character recognition (402); and Automatically and dynamically adjusting (408, 412, 416, 420) the rate at which the images are requested.

20. Receiving information about the medical device controller (406). Further comprising:

20. The method of claim 19, wherein automatically dynamically adjusting the rate at which the images are requested comprises automatically dynamically adjusting the rate based on the information regarding the medical device controller (408).

21. Receiving information about the computer network (410). Further comprising:

20. The method of claim 19, wherein automatically dynamically adjusting the rate at which the images are requested comprises automatically dynamically adjusting (412) the rate based on the information about the computer network.

22. receiving information about the workload on the server (414); Further comprising:

20. The method of claim 19, wherein automatically dynamically adjusting the rate at which the images are requested comprises automatically dynamically adjusting (416) the rate based on the information regarding the workload on the server.

23. Receiving input from a human user (418). Further comprising:

20. The method of claim 19, wherein automatically dynamically adjusting the rate at which the images are requested comprises automatically dynamically adjusting (420) the rate based on the input from the human user.

24. instructions that, when executed by a processor, establish a process for performing a computer-implemented method for monitoring a medical device.

13. A non-transitory computer readable medium encoded with a process (400) configured to automatically request and receive, via a computer network (302), from each medical device control device (100) of a plurality of medical device control devices, an image (200) of the content displayed on a screen (104) of said medical device control device; a process (402) configured to subject at least a portion of each image to automatic optical character recognition; a process (408, 412, 416, 420) configured to automatically and dynamically adjust the rate at which the images are requested; A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising:

Images