Gateway Wristband for Hospital Sensor Data Relay
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for tracking patients and integrating miniaturized electronic medical sensors with hospital information systems are inefficient and prone to errors due to manual identification processes and incompatibilities between personal area networks used by sensors and hospital-wide area networks.
Innovation Solution
A wireless communication gateway wristband that acts as a bridge between personal area networks of miniaturized electronic medical sensors and hospital-wide area networks, using a processor to manage communications, translate data formats, and implement security measures, allowing seamless data relay and patient identification.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If manual inspection of wristbands is used for patient tracking, then implementation is simple, but efficiency is low and human error is high
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces manual mechanical inspection of wristbands with an automated optical scanning system using barcode or RFID readers. This substitution eliminates human error and improves tracking efficiency while maintaining relative system simplicity through automated data capture and processing mechanisms.
Solution Approach 2:
The system enables self-service through automated wristband scanning and patient identification processes. The automated systems perform patient tracking, verification, and data collection without requiring manual intervention, thereby improving efficiency while the integrated nature of the system prevents excessive complexity.
2Ease of operation
If wires and cables are used to connect medical sensors to monitoring systems, then data transmission is reliable, but patient care is interfered with and hazards arise
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces the mechanical wire-and-cable connection system with a wireless communication system using radio frequency transceivers. This substitution maintains reliable data transmission through electromagnetic signals while completely eliminating the physical constraints and hazards associated with wires and tubes on patients.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces wireless communication as an intermediary between medical sensors and monitoring systems, replacing direct physical connections. This intermediary enables data transmission without mechanical contact, thereby improving patient accessibility and eliminating hazards while maintaining communication reliability through protocol-based data validation.
3Productivity
If miniaturized electronic medical sensors are deployed, then patient monitoring is improved, but integration with hospital information systems becomes complex
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a gateway device as an intermediary between miniaturized medical sensors and the hospital information system infrastructure. This gateway handles protocol conversion, data formatting, and communication routing, thereby enabling sensor deployment to improve monitoring capability while containing integration complexity within a dedicated intermediary component rather than throughout the entire system.
Solution Approach 2:
The gateway device is designed with multi-functionality to handle various sensor types, communication protocols, and data formats through a single integrated platform. This universality allows the system to accommodate diverse miniaturized sensors without proportionally increasing integration complexity, as the gateway provides standardized interfaces and abstraction layers.
4Measurement precision
If gateway wristband with wireless transceivers is used, then patient identification accuracy is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the patient identification functions with the medical sensor data collection functions into a single integrated gateway wristband device. This combining approach improves patient identification accuracy by ensuring the wristband is actually on the patient while collecting sensor data, but manages device complexity through functional integration rather than separate components.
Solution Approach 2:
The gateway wristband is designed as a multi-functional device that performs patient identification, sensor data collection, wireless communication, and data relay through a single integrated platform. This universality allows the device to handle multiple tasks with a unified architecture, thereby improving identification accuracy without proportionally increasing complexity compared to separate dedicated devices.
Data Source
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AI summary
A communication gateway wristband serves as a source of patient identification and as an interface between a personal area network (PAN) of miniaturized electronic medical sensors on a patient and a wireless wide-area network (WWAN) such as a hospital network. The gateway wristband includes a PAN transceiver which can establish wireless data links with wireless medical sensors, a WWAN transceiver which can establish a wireless data link with WWAN infrastructure, a memory which stores a patient identifier, and a processor which receives data via the PAN transceiver and relays the patient identifier and the received data to an external network via the WWAN transceiver. The processor manages communications with both the PAN and WWAN transceivers, stores received sensor data in memory, and translates data from the PAN protocol to the WWAN protocol so that sensor data is relayed to the hospital infrastructure.