Patent Application
20200206420
The present invention is directed to portable infusion pumps and more particularly to wireless communications of infusion pumps.
There are a wide variety of medical treatments that include the administration of a therapeutic fluid in precise, known amounts at predetermined intervals. Devices and methods exist that are directed to the delivery of such fluids, which may be liquids or gases, are known in the art.
One category of such fluid delivery devices includes insulin injecting pumps developed for administering insulin to patients afflicted with type I, or in some cases, type II diabetes. Some insulin injecting pumps are configured as portable or ambulatory infusion devices can provide continuous subcutaneous insulin injection and/or infusion therapy as an alternative to multiple daily injections of insulin via a syringe or an insulin pen. Such pumps are worn by the user and may use replaceable cartridges. In some embodiments, these pumps may also deliver medicaments other than, or in addition to, insulin, such as glucagon, pramlintide, and the like. Examples of such pumps and various features associated therewith include those disclosed in U.S. Patent Publication Nos. 2013/0324928 and 2013/0053816 and U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,287,495; 8,573,027; 8,986,253; and 9,381,297, each of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
Ambulatory infusion pumps have generally been controlled by a user interface provided on the pump. With the proliferation of handheld electronic devices, such as mobile phones (e.g., smartphones), there is a desire to be able to remotely utilize such devices, as well as dedicated wireless controllers designed to work with one or more infusion pumps and/or types of infusion pumps, to optimize usage of infusion pumps. These remote controllers would enable a pump to be monitored, programmed and/or operated more privately, more conveniently and more comfortably. Accordingly, one potential use of dedicated remote devices and handheld consumer electronic devices (such as smartphones, tablets and the like) is to utilize such devices as controllers for remotely programming and/or operating infusion pumps.
In addition to mobile control devices such as smartphones and dedicated remote controllers it may be beneficial to enable infusion pumps to communicate with other devices, such as continuous glucose monitors, glucose meters, and other health monitoring devices, for example. However, wireless communications are subject to interference for a number of reasons and therefore relying on wireless communication for medical therapy may pose some disadvantages as well. It would therefore be desirable to configure such communications to reduce the risk of important medical data not being transmitted due to communication issues.
Disclosed herein are methods for establishing communication protocols between wireless devices in infusion pump systems. Infusion pump systems can include a number of components capable of wireless communication with one or more other components including an infusion pump, a continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) system, a smartphone or other remote consumer electronic device and/or a dedicated remote controller for the infusion pump. In order to ensure reliable communication of data, more than one component in a system can be capable of relaying data to another component.
In one embodiment, methods of communication in an infusion pump system in which an infusion pump can communicate with both a remote control device and a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) sensor/transmitter include use of the remote control device as a relay device if communications between the infusion pump and the CGM transmitter are disrupted. During standard operation, the CGM transmitter directly sends data obtained by the CGM sensor to the pump for use in therapy determinations by the pump. However, if the pump becomes unable to receive the CGM data, rather than the pump operating without the data the remote control device can receive the data from the CGM transmitter and relay the data to the pump for use by the pump.
In an embodiment, a method of coordinating wireless communications in an infusion pump system including an infusion pump, a remote control device for remotely controlling the infusion pump, and a continuous glucose monitoring system is provided. Initially, communications are established between the infusion pump and the CGM system to enable the CGM system to transmit CGM data to the infusion pump and the infusion pump can determine therapy parameters utilizing the CGM data. If it is determined that the infusion pump is no longer receiving the CGM data communicated by the CGM system, the CGM data can be received from the CGM system at the remote control device. The remote control device can then relay the CGM data from the CGM system to the infusion pump to enable the infusion pump to continue to determine therapy parameters utilizing the CGM data even though the infusion pump is not receiving the CGM data from the CGM system itself.
In an embodiment, a method of coordinating wireless communications in an infusion pump system including an infusion pump, a remote control device for remotely controlling the infusion pump, and a CGM system is provided. A connection between the infusion pump and the CGM system is monitored to determine whether the infusion pump is receiving CGM data from the CGM system. If it is determined that the infusion pump is not receiving the CGM data from the CGM system, then the CGM data is received from the CGM system at another device and relayed from the CGM system to the infusion pump via the other device.
The above summary is not intended to describe each illustrated embodiment or every implementation of the subject matter hereof. The figures and the detailed description that follow more particularly exemplify various embodiments.
Subject matter hereof may be more completely understood in consideration of the following detailed description of various embodiments in connection with the accompanying figures, in which:
While various embodiments are amenable to various modifications and alternative forms, specifics thereof have been shown by way of example in the drawings and will be described in detail. It should be understood, however, that the intention is not to limit the claimed inventions to the particular embodiments described. On the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the subject matter as defined by the claims.
The following detailed description should be read with reference to the drawings in which similar elements in different drawings are numbered the same. The drawings, which are not necessarily to scale, depict illustrative embodiments and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention.
In one embodiment, the medical device can be a portable pump configured to deliver insulin to a patient. Further details regarding such pump devices can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 8,287,495, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. In other embodiments, the medical device can be an infusion pump configured to deliver one or more additional or other medicaments to a patient.
In one embodiment, pump 102 includes a processor that controls operations of the pump and, in some embodiments, may receive commands from a separate device for control of operations of the pump. Such a separate device can include, for example, a dedicated remote control or a smartphone or other consumer electronic device executing an application configured to enable the device to transmit operating commands to the processor of pump 102. In some embodiments, processor can also transmit information to one or more separate devices, such as information pertaining to device parameters, alarms, reminders, pump status, etc. In one embodiment pump 102 does not include a display, but may include one or more indicator lights 174 and/or one or more input buttons 172. Pump 102 can also incorporate any or all of the features described with respect to pump 12 in
As depicted in the embodiment of
Referring to
Although depicted with the multi-purpose consumer electronic device 204 being a smartphone, in various embodiments the consumer electronic device can alternatively or additional include one or more of a wearable electronic watch, electronic health or fitness monitor, personal digital assistant (PDA), or a tablet, laptop or personal computer, etc. A multi-purpose consumer electronic device can be any device sold to consumers and used for a variety of functions and which can be configured or programmed to communicate with and/or control an infusion pump as one of said functions. In some embodiments, systems as described herein may include more than one multi-purpose consumer electronic device configured for communication with the infusion pump and/or CGM (e.g., a smartphone and an electronic watch).
The devices in the system 200 of
Referring to
In a system such as those depicted in
CGM data as described herein can include glucose level and trend data that may be used by the pump in making therapy determination, but other data transmitted from the CGM sensor/transmitter to the pump could also be relayed. For example, one or more of diagnostic data such as battery life, sensor performance metrics, sensor algorithm information, therapy or dosing recommendations from the sensor, calibration requests/information, low battery reminders, etc. could also be relayed.
Although the systems and methods disclosed herein have primarily been described with regard to relaying data to an infusion pump from a CGM sensor/transmitter, the systems and methods herein could be employed with any other type of data intended to be received by an infusion pump and any other type of device configured to communication with an infusion pump. For example, the infusion pump could communicate with various other devices such as, for example, a CGM receiver, a blood glucose meter or other analyte sensing device, an activity or other health monitor, etc. In addition, although primarily described with respect to a smartphone as the relay device, it should be understood than any other device capable of wireless communication with medical devices could be employed as a relay device, such as, for example, a dedicated remote control device, a laptop computer, personal computer, tablet computer, wearable electronic watch or electronic health or fitness monitor, personal digital assistant (PDA), etc. Moreover, the systems and methods described herein are applicable to medical device other than user-wearable infusion pumps.
Although the infusion pump embodiments herein are specifically described primarily with respect to the delivery of insulin, delivery of other medicaments, singly or in combination with one another or with insulin, including, for example, glucagon, pramlintide, etc., as well as other applications are also contemplated. Device and method embodiments discussed herein may be used for pain medication, chemotherapy, iron chelation, immunoglobulin treatment, dextrose or saline IV delivery, treatment of various conditions including, e.g., pulmonary hypertension, or any other suitable indication or application. Non-medical applications are also contemplated.
Also incorporated herein by reference in their entirety are commonly owned U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,999,854; 8,133,197; 8,287,495; 8,408,421 8,448,824; 8,573,027; 8,650,937; 8,986,523; 9,173,998; 9,180,242; 9,180,243; 9,238,100; 9,242,043; 9,335,910; 9,381,271; 9,421,329; 9,486,171; 9,486,571; 9,492,608; 9,503,526; 9,555,186; 9,565,718; 9,603,995; 9,669,160; 9,715,327; 9,737,656; 9,750,871; 9,867,937; 9,867,953; 9,940,441; 9,993,595; 10,016,561; 10,201,656; 10,279,105; 10,279,106; 10,279,107; 10,357,603; 10,357,606; 10,492,141. commonly owned U.S. Patent Publication Nos. 2009/0287180; 2012/0123230; 2013/0053816; 2014/0276423; 2014/0276569; 2014/0276570; 2017/0182248; 2017/0250971; 2018/0021514; 2018/0071454; 2019/0240398; 2019/0307952; and 2019/0365997 and commonly owned U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 16/507,146 and 16/598,343.
Further incorporated by reference herein in their entirety are U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,601,465; 8,502,662; 8,452,953; 8,451,230; 8,449,523; 8,444,595; 8,343,092; 8,285,328; 8,126,728; 8,117,481; 8,095,123; 7,999,674; 7,819,843; 7,782,192; 7,109,878; 6,997,920; 6,979,326; 6,936,029; 6,872,200; 6,813,519; 6,641,533; 6,554,798; 6,551,276; 6,295,506; and 5,665,065. Various embodiments of systems, devices, and methods have been described herein.
These embodiments are given only by way of example and are not intended to limit the scope of the claimed inventions. It should be appreciated, moreover, that the various features of the embodiments that have been described may be combined in various ways to produce numerous additional embodiments. Moreover, while various materials, dimensions, shapes, configurations and locations, etc. have been described for use with disclosed embodiments, others besides those disclosed may be utilized without exceeding the scope of the claimed inventions.
Persons of ordinary skill in the relevant arts will recognize that the subject matter hereof may comprise fewer features than illustrated in any individual embodiment described above. The embodiments described herein are not meant to be an exhaustive presentation of the ways in which the various features of the subject matter hereof may be combined. Accordingly, the embodiments are not mutually exclusive combinations of features; rather, the various embodiments can comprise a combination of different individual features selected from different individual embodiments, as understood by persons of ordinary skill in the art. Moreover, elements described with respect to one embodiment can be implemented in other embodiments even when not described in such embodiments unless otherwise noted.
Although a dependent claim may refer in the claims to a specific combination with one or more other claims, other embodiments can also include a combination of the dependent claim with the subject matter of each other dependent claim or a combination of one or more features with other dependent or independent claims. Such combinations are proposed herein unless it is stated that a specific combination is not intended.
For purposes of interpreting the claims, it is expressly intended that the provisions of 35 U.S.C. § 112(f) are not to be invoked unless the specific terms “means for” or “step for” are recited in a claim.
The present application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/784,939 filed Dec. 26, 2018, which is hereby incorporated herein in its entirety by reference.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 62784939 | Dec 2018 | US |
