Patent Application
20090231120
1. Field of the invention
The present invention relates to an alarm, and more particularly to a medical alarm.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Recently with the rapid improvement of medical technique and equipment, not only the cure rate but also the average life is higher. Because excellent medical technique is based on powerful and stable medical equipment, improvement of the medical equipment has become more attentive.
In a hospital, there are many sickrooms used for treatment, operation, admission, or so on. Therefore, the environmental data of the sickrooms, such as the contents of oxygen, nitrogen, and nitrous oxide, or temperature, humidity, pressure, gas concentration, and so on are necessary to be monitored and analyzed to ensure medical safety for patients and medical personnel.
Reference is made to
Because the area alarm unit 10 and the master alarm unit 20 are the different apparatuses, the prior art alarm system is lack of installation flexibility. In other word, the amount of the area alarm units 10 and the master alarm units 20 are proportional to the amount of the monitored sickrooms. For example, fifty area alarm units 10 are required to purchase for service of fifty monitored sickrooms, and the master alarm units 20 are purchased according to actual demand for integrating and monitoring the environmental data. Therefore, if the numbers of the monitored sickrooms, or the number of the area alarm units 10 and the master alarm units 20 need to change, the installation costs increase, otherwise the installation efficiency decreases. Furthermore, all execution programs are embedded in processors of both area alarm units 10 and master alarm units 20 before shipping from factories. When the execution programs of the area alarm units 10 or the master alarm units 20 need to be updated, inside circuit boards of the area alarm units 10 or the master alarm units 20 have to be taken apart to update the execution programs. Therefore, it is to spend not only disassembling and assembling time but also costs of update operation.
It is a primary object of the present invention to provide an integrated apparatus of a medical alarm system so as to combine modules and functions of both area alarm units and master alarm units in the integrated apparatus. Therefore, the integrated apparatus can be used as an area alarm unit to detect environmental data in a sickroom or a master alarm unit to integrate detected environmental data in a monitor room. Furthermore, the integrated apparatus can also provide functions of an area alarm unit or a master alarm unit separately.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an integrated apparatus of a medical alarm system. A memory card module is installed in the integrated apparatus and connected to an external memory card with software programs to update and modify execution programs of the integrated apparatus. In addition, the memory card is used to copy stored data in the integrated apparatus to an external host so as to save not only disassembling and assembling time but also costs of updating the prior art circuit boards.
To achieve the objectives mentioned above, an integrated apparatus comprises modules and functions of both area alarm units and master alarm units. Furthermore, an input/output module is provided to distinguish functions of the area alarm units and the master alarm units. In addition, functions of both area alarm units and the master alarm units can also be operated in an integrated apparatus; and the execution programs of the integrated apparatus can be updated and modified by connecting to an external memory card.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary, and are intended to provide further explanation of the invention as claimed. Other advantages and features of the invention will be apparent from the following description, drawings and claims.
The above and further advantages of this invention may be better understood by referring to the following description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
The drawings will be described further in connection with the following detailed description of the present invention.
Reference is made to
1. A detection module 42 is used to detect various environmental data, such as the contents of oxygen, nitrogen, and nitrous oxide, or temperature, humidity, pressure, gas concentration, etc., and the data are delivered to the control unit 41 to be analyzed whether which are up to the standards or not.
2. A display module 43 can be an organic light emitting diode (OLED), a light emitting diode (LED), a liquid crystal display (LCD), or so on. The display module 43 shows with different signs to indicate a normal or abnormal environmental condition according to the analyzed data.
3. A switch module 44 can be used to connect to various external extension apparatus 5 with a switch function, such as a vacuum sweeper, an air compressor, or so on. For example, the switch module 44 is installed in a second integrated apparatus 4b, which provides function of the master alarm unit, and is connected to the first integrated apparatus 4a, which provides function of the area alarm unit, to receive recorded alarm signals from the first integrated apparatus 4a.
4. A relay module 45 is used to connect to other apparatuses or circuit boards so as to deliver the alarm signals to other alarm systems or apparatuses. For example, the relay module 45 is installed in the first integrated apparatus 4a, which provides function of the area alarm unit, and is connected to the second integrated apparatus 4b, which provides function of the master alarm unit, to output sensed alarm signals by the detection module 42 of the first integrated apparatus 4a to the second integrated apparatus 4b.
5. A web server module 41a is embedded in the control unit 41 and used as an embedded web server. The web server module 41a can be updated by an external memory card to be monitored by the Internet.
The integrated apparatus 4 further comprises a interface port module 46 to connect to an external host 3 in a wired or wireless way to carefully monitor sickrooms in a hospital. In this embodiment, an RS-232 interface port provides the wired way, while a wireless LAN card provides the wireless way. The interface port module 46 can be used as an interface module, which supports the TCP/IP communication protocol, and can be connected to a personal computer so as to monitor environmental data on the personal computer by the web server module 41a.
Reference is made to
The first integrated apparatus 4a is used as an extension apparatus by connecting a relay module 45 thereof to a switch module 44 of the second integrated apparatus 4b to deliver the detected environmental data. In this embodiment, the first integrated apparatus 4a is connected to the second integrated apparatus 4b by an RS-485 annunciator board. The plurality of first integrated apparatus 4a (area alarm unit) are placed in different sickrooms to detect various environmental data, respectively; and the second integrated apparatus 4b (master alarm unit) is placed in a central control room to connect to the first integrated apparatus 4a by a plurality of switch module 44. Afterward, the display module 43 of the second integrated apparatus 4b is provided to display required information of all sickrooms. In this embodiment, a green LED and a red LED of the display module 43 are corresponded to the first integrated apparatus 4a (area alarm unit), and are used to display a normal or an abnormal environmental condition separately. Furthermore, the relay module 45 of the second integrated apparatus 4b is also connected to an external apparatus, such as an alarm apparatus, or an auto-alarm apparatus, etc. (not shown) to provide a pluralistic and integrated monitor so as to enhance security of the hospital.
In addition, the integrated apparatus 4 provides not only function of the area alarm unit or the master alarm unit but also function of combining the two alarms together. Reference is made to
Three functions (the area alarm units, the master alarm units, and combination of the area alarm units and the masters) of the prevent invention can be specified by an update program; and the update program of the integrated apparatus 4 can be also modified. As shown in
Although the present invention has been described with reference to the preferred embodiment thereof, it will be understood that the invention is not limited to the details thereof. Various substitutions and modifications have been suggested in the foregoing description, and others will occur to those of ordinary skill in the art. Therefore, all such substitutions and modifications are intended to be embraced within the scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims.
