System and method for transmitting health data in medical monitoring environment

Abstract

FIELD: medical monitoring.SUBSTANCE: system for transmitting data on health status in a medical monitoring environment. A system for implementing a method is proposed, which comprises a communication network for transmitting data on the state of health in a medical monitoring environment, a transmitting device for transmitting data on the state of health via the communication network, and a device for receiving data on the state of health from the transmitting device via a communication channel of the communication network. Here, the device for receiving health data from the transmitting device is configured to send a subscription request message containing a subscription request to the transmitting device, and the transmitting device is configured to, after receiving the subscription request message, check the validity of the subscription request and establish a communication channel for transmitting health data to the receiving device.EFFECT: easy connection of the receiving device to the network with the possibility of reducing data load and improving backup management.9 cl, 4 dwg

Description

[0001] The present invention relates to a system for transmitting health data in a medical monitoring environment according to the preamble of claim 1 of the invention and to a method for transmitting health data in a medical monitoring environment.

[0002] This type of system comprises a communication network for transmitting health data in a medical monitoring environment. The transmitting device in this regard serves to transmit the health data via the communication network, and the receiving device serves to receive the health data from the transmitting device via the communication channel of the communication network.

[0003] Typically, in a healthcare environment such as a hospital, multiple patient care devices, such as infusion devices for administering medications to patients, operate in different locations within the healthcare environment, such as different departments (such as general medical departments, intensive care units, emergency departments, etc.) and in different areas within different departments, such as at the bedsides of different patients. Such patient care devices typically operate independently and generate data, such as data related to infusions that have been performed or are ongoing, which must be transmitted, at least to some extent, as health data, such as to a hospital information system (HIS).In a hospital communication network, patient care devices are typically connected to a gateway device, which, for example, pre-processes health data received from the patient care devices to transmit the health data to the hospital information system.

[0004] A hospital information system is generally understood as a set of information processing systems for collecting, processing, and distributing medical and administrative data within a hospital. A hospital information system includes, in particular, one or more servers that receive and process health data to provide health data to users, who may, for example, access the hospital information system from within the hospital via stationary workstations or using mobile devices such as tablet computers or smartphones.

[0005] A hospital information system may, in particular, contain or serve as a patient data monitoring system (PDMS, commonly used in Europe) or an electronic medical record (EMR, commonly used, for example, in the United States) for collecting and processing patient-related information. Technically, an EMR generally refers to a permanent database, while a PDMS refers to the end-user interface displayed at the patient's bedside. As an overarching architectural 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 (regardless of whether it is wired or wireless).

[0006] A statically configured connection is typically used to connect a hospital information system / patient data management system server to the healthcare monitoring environment's communication network. Therefore, before interacting with the communication network, both the server and the network, particularly the gateway for sending outgoing health data to the server, must be configured. Afterward, the server remains statically connected to the network. Configuration is typically performed manually by the IT administrator and may result in service interruptions for other systems.

[0007] In addition, in the case of conventional configurations, the redundancy scheme to ensure redundancy in the event of a hospital information system server failure may be difficult to provide because it may increase data traffic or may require specific additional network hardware.

[0008] The object of the present invention is to provide a system and method for transmitting health data in a medical monitoring environment, which can enable easy connection of a receiving device to a network with the ability to reduce data loading and improve backup management.

[0009] This objective is achieved by a system for transmitting health data in a medical monitoring environment, containing the distinctive features of claim 1 of the invention.

[0010] Accordingly, the receiving device, for receiving the health data from the transmitting device, is configured to send a subscription request message containing a subscription request to the transmitting device, and the transmitting device is configured to, after receiving the subscription request message, check the validity of the subscription request and establish a communication channel for transmitting the health data to the receiving device.

[0011] The communication channel for transmitting health data from the transmitting device to the receiving device can therefore be dynamically set upon a subscription request sent by the receiving device. Establishment of the communication channel is initiated by a subscription request message sent from the receiving device to the transmitting device. The transmitting device then verifies the validity of the subscription request contained in the subscription request message and, upon successful verification, establishes the communication channel for transmitting health data to the receiving device.

[0012] Since the communication channel can be assigned dynamically, no static configuration of the transmitting and receiving devices is required, which can help reduce connection setup costs. Specifically, no IT administrator intervention may be required, with the communication channel being established automatically through interactions between the transmitting and receiving devices.

[0013] By means of a subscription request, the receiving device indicates that it wishes to receive health data. The subscription request mentioned here may be specific in that it may identify a specific group of patient care devices (e.g., infusion devices) from which health data should be received according to a standard method, for example, patient care devices located in a specific location, such as a specific hospital department. After establishing a communication channel, the transmitting device will, according to a standard method, transmit the health data specified in the subscription request—for example, health data collected from a specific subset of patient care devices—to the receiving device, which collects the health data and processes the health data for further use, such as in a hospital information system.

[0014] The receiving device may, in one embodiment, be configured to send the subscription request message via a secure channel other than the communication channel, such as an HTTPS channel. HTTPS stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure and is a communication protocol, particularly for the Internet, for secure data transfer. An HTTPS connection is secure because it uses encryption and authentication. This encryption, in particular, uses SSL / TLS.

[0015] The communication channel that is established after the subscription request contained in the subscription request message has been successfully validated may, in one embodiment, use a technology different from the secure channel used to send the subscription request message. The communication channel may be defined 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, as it is used on the Internet, where the identification of network parties occurs through IP addresses. MLLP stands for Minimum Lower Layer Protocol. An MLLP connection may, in particular, be defined by the HL7 standards group for the exchange of health data in a medical environment, in particular between systems in a hospital communication network or between systems of different hospitals.

[0016] In one embodiment, the transmitting device is configured to send a response message to the receiving computing device after receiving the subscription request message to validate the subscription request. The response message is preferably sent on the same secure channel on which the subscription request message was sent, so that the transmitting device responds to the receiving device on the same channel. The response message indicates whether the validation of the subscription request in the subscription request message was successful. After validating the subscription request, the transmitting device makes the communication channel available in the communication network using the parameters specified in the subscription request.

[0017] In one embodiment, the transmitting device may be a device observation reporter (DOR), configured to receive health data from one or more patient care devices located in a healthcare monitoring environment. The receiving device, in turn, may be a device observation consumer (DOC), configured to receive health data from the DOC. A DOR typically collects health data from patient care devices, including data based on proprietary formats, and is configured to display and format the collected data for transactions with consistent syntax and semantics.DOC, in turn, serves to receive health data from patient care devices from DOR, collects the received health data, and processes this health data.

[0018] The connection between the DOR and the DOC may be defined by so-called integration profiles (e.g. standardized integration profiles such as IHE IPEC, DEC, ACM, etc.), which may, inter alia, define the format and syntax of health data to be transferred from the DOR to the DOC and modify the order of transfer of health data so that the health data can be received and processed in the DOC according to the standardized format and syntax.

[0019] In one embodiment, the receiving device is a hospital information system configured to receive and process health data and provide information to users who can access the hospital information system, such as from fixed workstations or using mobile communication devices.

[0020] The subscription request contained in the subscription request message may contain information defining the communication channel to be established for transmitting health data from the transmitting device to the receiving device. Specifically, the subscription request may contain information related to the unique identifier, network connectivity parameters, integration profile, update delay, and location within the medical monitoring environment.

[0021] The unique identifier can be used to identify the connection (communication channel) established between the transmitting device and the receiving device.

[0022] Network connectivity parameters may include, for example, the TCP / IP address, host name, and port to be used.

[0023] The information related to the integration profile may refer to a standard integration profile to be used for communication, such as IHE (IPEC, DEC, ACM, etc.), FHIR, or a proprietary integration profile.

[0024] The information relating to the update delay may determine the frequency with which the health data is to be updated, i.e., the frequency of sending messages with health data relating to, for example, a specific set of patient care devices, such as infusion devices, from a transmitting device to a receiving device.

[0025] Location-related information may, for example, serve to identify a location in the healthcare control environment, such as a specific hospital department, a specific set of rooms within a hospital department, etc., or to identify a set of patient care devices from which health data is to be transmitted to a receiving device. In general, a hospital may be organized in a hierarchical, tree-like structure, with the top level defined as the entire hospital, which may be subdivided into hierarchical levels related to departments, rooms (within a department), and beds (within a room). Location information may relate to such a hierarchical structure, defining, for example, a specific department or a specific set of rooms within a department, or a specific bed within a room within a department.According to the subscription, the transmitting device sends to the receiving device only the health data related to a specified set of patient care devices, for example, only those patient care devices located in a specific area of ​​the hospital, such as a specific department or a specific room. Consequently, not all health data collected in the holistic healthcare environment is sent to the receiving device, such as the hospital information system, to essentially reduce the data load on the network.

[0026] The objective of the present invention is also achieved by a method for transmitting health data in a medical monitoring environment, wherein the method comprises the steps of: transmitting health data through a communication channel of a communication network from a transmitting device to a receiving device, wherein the receiving device, in order to receive the health data from the transmitting device, sends a subscription request message containing a subscription request to the transmitting device, and the transmitting device, after receiving the subscription request message, checks the validity of the subscription request and establishes a communication channel for transmitting the health data to the receiving device.

[0027] The advantages and preferred embodiments described above for the system are equally applicable to the method, so reference should be made to the above-mentioned advantages and preferred embodiments.

[0028] The idea underlying the present invention will be described below in more detail with reference to the embodiments shown in the drawings, in which:

[0029] Fig. 1 shows a schematic diagram of a medical control environment such as a hospital containing patient care devices connected to a communication network;

[0030] Fig. 2 shows a schematic view of the communication between the receiving device and the transmitting device for establishing a communication channel for transmitting health data from the transmitting device to the receiving device;

[0031] Fig. 3 shows a schematic drawing of the reservation control; and

[0032] Fig. 4 shows a schematic diagram of a medical monitoring environment having multiple device observable information (DOC) consumers interacting with a device observable report (DOR) generator.

[0033] Fig. 1 shows a schematic diagram of a medical control environment 1 corresponding to, for example, a hospital organization.

[0034] The medical control environment 1 may comprise different departments 10, each of which has a set of rooms 100 in which patient care devices (PCDs), such as infusion devices for administering medical fluids to patients, can be operated under the supervision of medical personnel of the different departments 10. The departments 10 may, for example, correspond to general medical departments of a hospital, an intensive care unit, an emergency department, or specialized departments, such as those related to therapeutic services (for example, an oncology department or a pharmacy) and diagnostic services (for example, a radiology or cardiology department).

[0035] The medical monitoring environment 1 comprises an internal communication network 4 for ensuring the transfer of data between different information systems of the medical monitoring environment 1. The communication network 4 may, in particular, comprise a gateway 2, to which a plurality of patient care devices 11 are connected and which serves to ensure the transfer of data to and from the patient care devices 11.

[0036] Through gateway 2, devices 11 for providing patient care can be, in particular, connected to a hospital information system 3, which serves to collect, process and distribute health data for information use in a medical control environment 1, wherein, for example, medical personnel can access the hospital information system 3 using stationary workstations or mobile computing devices, such as a tablet computer, etc., to obtain medical information, for example, related to a specific patient.

[0037] In the communication network 4, the gateway 2 can, in particular, serve as a transmitting device, in particular, a so-called device observable reporter (DOR), for providing health data collected from the patient care devices 11 to the hospital information system 3, which serves as a receiving device, in particular, a so-called device observable information consumer (DOC). The gateway 2 collects and pre-processes health data, such as operational data and patient data, received from the patient care devices 11, for, for example, displaying and formatting the data received from the patient care devices 11 according to a standardized syntax and semantics, for transmitting the health data to the hospital information system 3.

[0038] The transmission of health data from the gateway 2 to the hospital information system 3, in particular, the server of the hospital information system 3, takes place through the communication channel 41. Since the static configuration of the communication channel 41 is difficult and involves actions performed by the IT administrator, and, in addition, may cause interruption of services for other devices in the communication network 4, it is proposed to use a dynamic registration scheme that allows dynamically setting the communication channel 41 upon request of the receiving device, in particular, the server of the hospital information system 3.

[0039] In particular, as schematically shown in Fig. 2, to establish a communication channel 41, it is proposed that the server of the hospital information system 3 (functioning as a receiving device) sends a subscription request message A1 containing a subscription request, after which the gateway 2 (functioning as a transmitting device) responds by sending a response message A2. The subscription request message A1 and the response message A2 are sent through a secure channel 40, which can be set according to HTTPS, for example. Here, the message A2 is synchronously sent by the gateway 2, i.e., the hospital information system 3 waits for the response A2 before further actions.

[0040] The subscription request contained in the subscription request message A1 contains information related to the specification of the required communication channel 41, in particular, a unique identifier, network connectivity parameters such as a TCP / IP address / host name and port of the server of the hospital information system 3 to be connected, a standard integration profile such as IHE IPEC, DEC, ACM, etc. to be used for communication via the communication channel 41, a specific refresh delay parameter, and a location in the medical monitoring environment 1 from which the health data is to be collected and transmitted to the server of the hospital information system 3.The gateway 2 verifies the validity of the subscription request and, after a successful validation (which is indicated in the response message A2), establishes a communication channel 41 for sending messages A3 containing health data, such that the server of the hospital information system 3 is connected to the gateway 2 and, therefore, can receive health data collected from a given group of devices 11 for providing patient care, through the gateway 2.

[0041] Since the assignment of the communication channel 41 takes place automatically through interactions between the receiving device (hospital information system server 3) and the transmitting device (gateway 2), installation of the server in the communication network 4 is easy and does not interrupt any services provided by gateway 2 to other parties.

[0042] The communication channel 41 mentioned here may use a protocol different from the protocol of the secure channel 40, and may be, for example, an MLLP channel.

[0043] Because, according to the interactions between the receiving device and the transmitting device in the context of a subscription request, only those health data are sent to the receiving device that relate to a specific subset of the patient care devices 11 - for example, only to the patient care devices 11 located in a specific area in the medical control environment 1, for example, in a specific department 10 or a specific set of rooms 100 of a specific department 10, the data load on the communication network 4 is reduced, since the receiving device will only receive those health data to which it has subscribed.

[0044] In addition, according to the subscription request, the specific update delay, i.e., the frequency of data transmission, can be set individually for the established communication channel 41, which can further reduce the data load, since less critical health data can be transmitted at a lower repetition frequency.

[0045] In addition, the proposed scheme can improve the backup management in case of hospital information system server failure 3.

[0046] In particular, the hospital information system 3, schematically shown in Fig. 3, may comprise redundant servers 30, 31, which may be separate hardware components or may be implemented in software as virtual servers, wherein one server 30 is the main server, and the other server 31 is a backup auxiliary server that takes over the functions of the main server 30 in the event of its failure. To collect health data from the gateway 2, the main server 30, during normal operation, establishes a connection B1 according to the scheme described above, and, in particular, using a unique identifier that uniquely identifies this connection.In the event of a failure of the primary server 30, which can be detected in the hospital information system 3 by means of suitable failure detection (including, for example, the exchange of so-called "active" messages between the servers 30, 31), the secondary server 31 sends a subscription request message A1 (shown in Fig. 2) to the gateway 2 using the same unique identifier that was previously used by the primary server 30. The gateway 2 therefore notices that another server 31 using the same unique identifier plans to take over the functions of the primary server 30, whereupon the gateway 2 sends a response message A2 to the secondary server 31 and establishes a communication channel B2 with the secondary server 31 to provide health data according to the subscription to the secondary server 31 identified from that moment.In the event of a failure of the primary server 30, therefore, the backup server 31 can easily connect to the gateway 2, after which the health data will be sent to the secondary server 31 instead of the primary server 30, thus the secondary server 31 will organically take over the functionality of the primary server 30, and the servers 30, 31 share the same links to the databases, i.e. the backup server 31 receives the same set of data that was previously sent to the server 30.

[0047] Fig. 4 shows a schematic diagram of the configuration of the medical monitoring environment 1, in which multiple consumers 3 of the information on the monitored devices (DOC), for example, in the form of different PDMS / EMR of the hospital information system, communicate with a generator of the report on the monitored devices (DOR) in the form of the gateway 2 of the communication network 4. Both consumers 3 of the information on the monitored devices described here are subscribed to the gateway 2 using the scheme described above in accordance with Fig. 2, in particular, by sending an individual message A1 with a subscription request through a secure channel 40 to the gateway 2, after which the gateway 2 responds with a response message A2 and sets the communication channel 41 to provide health data for the consumers 3 of the information on the monitored devices according to their subscription.

[0048] To set up a subscription, each monitored device information consumer 3 sends an individual subscription message A1 containing an individual update delay parameter, a unique identifier, network connectivity parameters such as an IP address and port, information related to the integration profile to be used, and location information identifying the set of patient care devices for which health data is to be provided to the monitored device information consumer 3.

[0049] In the above example, the monitored device information consumer 3 shown on the left has a unique identifier #1 and an IP address / port #1. With the subscription request message A1, the monitored device information consumer 3 sends a specific update delay #1, the unique identifier #1, the IP address / port #1, information regarding the integration profile #1 to be used, and location information A related to a set of patient care devices located in different rooms, for example, different departments of the medical monitoring environment 1, as shown in Fig. 4.

[0050] Similarly, the monitored device information consumer 3 shown on the right has a unique identifier #2 and an IP address / port #2. With the subscription request message A1, the monitored device information consumer 3 sends a specific update delay #2, the unique identifier #2, the IP address / port #2, information regarding the integration profile #2 to be used, and location information B related to a set of patient care devices located in different rooms, for example, different departments of the medical monitoring environment 1, as shown in Fig. 4.

[0051] Accordingly, the gateway 2 sets individual communication channels 41 to each consumer 3 of the information on the monitored devices to provide an individual set of health data for a specific consumer 3 of the information on the monitored devices according to the specified integration profiles, providing data from the patient care devices located in the areas A, B identified by the location information of the subscription request message A1.

[0052] The idea underlying the present invention is not limited to the embodiments described above, but can be realized in a completely different form in completely different embodiments.

[0053] In particular, the subscription scheme proposed herein can be used between any transmitting device and receiving device in a medical monitoring environment and is not limited to the specific devices mentioned herein.

[0054] The subscription request may contain additional information or information different from the information mentioned here.

[0055] Additionally, channels can be set according to other technologies and protocols and are not limited to the protocols mentioned here.

[0056] List of reference items

[0057] 1 - Medical control environment (hospital)

[0058] 10 - branches

[0059] 100 - premises

[0060] 11 - Patient care devices

[0061] 2 - transmitting device (gateway)

[0062] 3 - Receiving device (hospital information system)

[0063] 30 - main server

[0064] 31 - auxiliary server

[0065] 4 - Hospital Communication Network

[0066] 40 - secure channel

[0067] 41 - communication channel

[0068] A1, A2, A3 - messages

[0069] B1, B2 – connections.

Claims

1. A system for transmitting health data in a medical control environment (1), comprising: - a communication network (4) for transmitting data on health status in the medical control environment (1); - a transmitting device (2) for transmitting health data via a communication network (4); and - a receiving device (3) for receiving data on the state of health from a transmitting device (2) via a communication channel (41) of a communication network (4), wherein the receiving device (3) for receiving health data from the transmitting device (2) is configured to send a message (A1) with a subscription request containing a subscription request to the transmitting device (2), wherein the transmitting device (2) is configured to, after receiving the message (A1) with a subscription request, check the validity of the subscription request and establish a communication channel (41) for transmitting health data to the receiving device (3), wherein the receiving device (3) is configured to send a message (A1) with a subscription request via a secure channel (40) different from the communication channel (41), wherein the subscription request comprises information relating to at least one of a unique identifier, a network connectivity parameter, an integration profile, an update delay, and a location in the medical monitoring environment (1), wherein the location-related information identifies the location of the patient care devices (11) from which the health data is to be transmitted to the receiving device (3).

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the secure channel (40) is a channel according to HTTPS.

3. The system of claim 1 or 2, wherein the communication channel is a TCP / IP channel.

4. The system of claim 1 or 2, wherein the communication channel is a channel according to MLLP.

5. A system according to any of the preceding claims, in which the transmitting device (2) is configured to send, after receiving the message (A1) with a subscription request, a response message (A2) to the receiving device (3) to check the validity of the subscription request.

6. A system according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the transmitting device (2) is a monitored device report generator configured to receive health data from at least one patient care device (11) located in the medical monitoring environment (1).

7. The system according to claim 6, in which the receiving device (3) is a consumer of information about monitored devices, configured to receive data about the state of health from a generator of reports about monitored devices.

8. The system according to any of the preceding claims, wherein the receiving device (3) is a hospital information system.

9. A method for transmitting data on the state of health in the environment (1) of medical control, in which transmit data on the state of health through the communication channel (41) of the communication network (4) from the transmitting device (2) to the receiving device (3), wherein the receiving device (3) for receiving the health data from the transmitting device (2) sends a message (A1) with a subscription request containing a subscription request to the transmitting device (2), wherein the transmitting device (2) after receiving the message (A1) with a subscription request checks the validity of the subscription request and establishes a communication channel (41) for transmitting the health data to the receiving device (3), wherein the receiving device (3) sends a message (A1) with a subscription request via a secure channel (40) different from the communication channel (41), wherein the subscription request comprises information relating to at least one of a unique identifier, a network connectivity parameter, an integration profile, an update delay, and a location in the medical monitoring environment (1), wherein the location-related information identifies the location of the patient care devices (11) from which the health data is to be transmitted to the receiving device (3).

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