The present invention relates to a network roaming and reporting system of physiological parameters and its method, and more particularly to a system and a method capable of reporting to a patient's related contact person through Internet if the patient's life condition is critical.
As the world's average fertility rate drops gradually, the population ageing issue catches more attentions, and the problems caused by the elderly population become increasingly serious, and thus the demand for elderly care and remote homecare increases constantly. In recent years, information technology keeps advancing, the applications of remote homecare and medical services become more diversified, and many developed countries aggressively conduct researches and promotions on remote homecare and medical services to solve the problems caused by the elderly population. Such arrangement not only helps medical institutes including hospitals or clinics to achieve the purposes of sharing resources and saving costs, but also effectively promoting homecare and medical services to remote districts with insufficient medical resources.
In general, the so-called “remote homecare” or “remote medical service” connects a patient and a family, or a patient and a doctor at two different places and transmits information such as a patient's physiological parameters (including blood pressure, heartbeat or blood sugar level) to a family or a doctor through Internet or telephone network technology, so as to compile and save the information as the patient's physiological parameter history data and determine the patient's condition. If a patient feels unwell or a patient's life condition is critical, timely homecare or medical services will be provided. Thus, remote homecare or remote medical services can overcome the limitations of time and space by transferring the medical activities originally held at a medical hospital or a clinic to the patient's home. To build a good remote homecare or remote medical service system, the following three conditions must be met:
(1) Data Computerization: Various kinds of medical treatment information must be fully computerized; for instance, information such as texts, graphs, static images and video voices must be computerized, so that the information and data can be transmitted rapidly through Internet.
(2) Software System: It is necessary to have a set of software capable of integrating texts, data, graphs, images, voices and videoconferencing contents to quickly access the required data between a patient and a doctor at different locations and successfully provide remote homecare or remote medical services. In the past, the remote homecare or remote medical treatment primarily transmitted images through one-way and two-way image transmissions. However, the present remote homecare or medical treatment emphasizes on transmitting a patient's physiological parameters (including blood pressure, heartbeat or blood sugar level) or medical images (such as X-ray films or pathology slides), or simultaneously conducts two-way transmission of images and voice messages, so that a doctor can perform a remote diagnosis directly at the system. For instance, a doctor can simultaneously transmit and inquire information of a patient's condition through sounds and images and perform a medical checkup (including electrocardiogram, auscultation or blood sugar monitoring) for the patient based on the physiological information such as texts, data or graphs measured by the patient's own measuring instrument (including an electrocardiograph, a sphygmomanometer or a blood sugar meter).
(3) Telecommunication Network: It is necessary to build a fast wideband telecommunication network (such as Internet or telephone network) for transmitting a patient's various medical treatment information quickly to a doctor or a family at a remote end, so that the doctor or family can immediately identify the patient's current condition and provide appropriate help.
In the foregoing three major conditions, the invested research funds and manpower for computerizing various different medical treatment information and building a remote homecare or remote medical service software capable of integrating texts, data, graphs, images, voices and video contents must be huge, except the fast wideband telecommunication network tends to become lower and more popular. As a result, the costs incurred for the applications of a remote homecare or remote medical service system remains very high and unaffordable to the general public. What is more, the traditional remote homecare or medical service systems still have the following two major drawbacks. Firstly, these systems are built at a fixed residence or office of a patient and a doctor (or a patient and a family) at different locations, such that if a patient leaves his/her fixed residence or office, the systems cannot monitor the patient's physiological conditions anymore, and thus creating a tremendous psychological burden to the patient, and the patient dares not to leave the residence or office (similar to taking the patient into custody). Such result definitely will adversely affect the patient's health, particularly to a patient with a chronic disease. Secondly, the physiological parameters obtained by monitoring the patient's physiological condition by these systems are transmitted and saved into a specific doctor's office or a specific medical hospital or clinic. Once if the patient falls ill in other districts, it is quite common that the personal related physiological parameter history data cannot be obtained immediately and thus causing a delay of medical treatment or even an unredeemable regret.
Therefore, finding a way of using the existing low-price wideband network, low equipment cost and simple system architecture to design a remote homecare and medical service system to achieve the remote homecare or remote medical service effect, such that patients can freely travel to other places without worrying about being unable to have proper medical care and treatments, and allow users to have a full control and decision-making power on their own physiological parameter history data is an important research subject for manufacturers of the related industry.
In view of the foregoing shortcomings of the prior art, the inventor of the present invention based on years of experience to conduct extensive researches and experiments and finally invented a network roaming and reporting system of physiological parameters and method thereof, in hope of acquiring a user's physiological parameter history data collected and saved into the system by the user at regular time through the network roaming mechanism, or acquiring a physiological parameter threshold set by the user, such that when the life condition of the patient is determined to be critical, a precaution reporting mechanism will be started to report the patient's condition immediately to a related department or a family member, so as to achieve the remote homecare and medical services without being limited by geographical districts.
Therefore, it is an objective of the present invention to overcome the foregoing shortcomings by providing a system comprising at least one wireless transmission module, at least two gateways, an Internet and a server, wherein the wireless transmission module is connected to a portable measuring instrument (such as a sphygmomanometer or a blood sugar meter) for receiving a user's physiological parameters (including blood pressure, heartbeat or blood sugar level) measured by the measuring instrument, and using an identification code of the wireless transmission module to encode the physiological parameters into a first packet which is transmitted by a wireless method. The gateway is provided for receiving the first packet transmitted from the wireless transmission module, and analyzing and processing the first packet based on the user's physiological parameter history data collected and stored at regular time or based on a physiological parameter threshold set by a user, and determining whether or not the user's life condition becomes critical and automatically generating a precaution reporting signal, and using an identification code of the wireless transmission module and an exclusive identification code of the gateway to encode the precaution reporting signal into a second packet and transmit the second packet out; and the server achieves a roaming mechanism of physiological parameters between any two gateways at different locations through Internet, such that one gateway can access the user's physiological parameter history data collected and saved into another gateway at regular time, or can access a physiological parameter threshold set by a user from another gateway. If the server receives a precaution reporting signal transmitted from the gateway, the server will base on the contact information (such as email address or telephone number) of the logged-on user's related department or family member to report to the related department or family member through Internet or telephone network. Regardless of the location of the user, the user can acquire proper remote homecare and medical services through the system.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a system such that if a user issues an emergency signal through the wireless transmission module, the wireless transmission module will use its identification code to encode the emergency signal into a third packet and transmit the third packet out by a wireless method. When the gateway receives the third packet transmitted from the wireless transmission module and determines that the wireless transmission module has produced the emergency signal, the gateway automatically generates a precaution reporting signal, and uses an identification code of the wireless transmission module and an exclusive identification code of the gateway to encode the precaution reporting signal into a fourth packet and transmit the fourth packet out. When the server receives the precaution reporting signal, the server bases on the contact information (such as email address or telephone number) of a logged-on user's related department or family member corresponding to the identification code of the wireless transmission module and the address data of the identification code of the gateway to transmit a correct address of the emergency signal transmitted from the user to report to the related department or family member through Internet or telephone network.
To make it easy for our examiner to understand the objective, shape, structure, characteristics and performance of the present invention, a detailed description of the preferred embodiments with reference to the accompanying drawings are given below.
Referring to
Referring to
It is noteworthy that when a user 10 uses the system of the present invention for the first time, the user 10 needs to register the following data into the management database of the server 41:
(1) The identification code of the wireless transmission module: It is an exclusive identification code of the wireless transmission module 11, which is also an exclusive personal identification code of the user 10;
(2) The contact information (such as a telephone number or an email address), and the basic information and related contact person (such as a family member 60, a doctor or a medical hospital or clinic) of the user 10: These data correspond to an identification code of the wireless transmission module 11 for facilitating the server 41 to identify the user 10 and related contact person based on the identification code of the wireless transmission module 11 carried in the received first packet;
(3) The identification code of the gateway: It is an exclusive identification code of the gateway 12; and
(4) The installation location of the gateway and related contact information (which refers to the contact person's location or the telephone number or email address of an nearby medical hospital or clinic): These data correspond to the identification code of the gateway 12 for facilitating the server 41 to identify the installation location of the gateway 12 and the related contact person based on the identification code of the gateway 12 carried in the received first packet.
In the present invention, the server 41 connects the gateways 12, 22 installed at different districts through the Internet 31 to achieve the roaming mechanism of physiological parameters, such that if a user 10 goes out or stays in a friend's place, and the friend's place also has a gateway 22 as shown in
Referring to
If the gateway 22 receives a connection request packet transmitted from a wireless transmission module 11 at the present environment, the control and processing are performed according to the following procedure as shown in
Step (801): Receive a connection request packet transmitted from a wireless transmission module 11 at the present environment;
Step (802): Examine a lookup table stored in a database to determine whether or not the identification code of the wireless transmission module 11 carried in the connection request packet has been registered as an authenticated identification code. If yes, then continue Step (803); or else refuse the connection request of the wireless transmission module 11 and continue Step (801);
Step (803): Transmit an identification code of the wireless transmission module 11 and an identification code of the gateway 22 to the server 41 through Internet 31; after the server 41 has received the identification codes, the server 41 examines a logon data in its management database according to the identification code of the wireless transmission module 11 and determines whether or not the received identification code of the gateway 22 is the same as the identification code of the logged-on gateway 12. If yes, then it indicates that the wireless transmission module 11 is used at the installation location within the district of the originally logged-on environment; if no, then it indicates that the wireless transmission module 11 is used in a district beyond the originally logged-on environment. Now, the server 41 downloads a physiological parameter history data of a user 10 stored in the gateway 12 from the originally logged-on gateway 12 according to the identification code of the originally logged-on gateway 12, or downloads a physiological parameter threshold set by the user 10 in the gateway 12 and transmits and stores the physiological parameter history data and threshold in a currently used gateway 22;
Step (804): Determine whether or not its database has stored the physiological parameter history data or threshold of the user 10 corresponding to the identification code of the wireless transmission module 11; if yes, then continue Step (805), or else continue Step (808);
Step (805): Receive a third packet transmitted from the wireless transmission module 11 and decode the third packet to obtain a carried physiological parameter or emergency signal of the user 10; and
Step (806): Determine whether or not the physiological parameter of the user 10 carried in the received third packet indicates that the life condition of the user 10 or an emergency signal carried in the received third packet is critical according to the physiological parameter history data or threshold of the user 10; if yes, then continue Step (807), or else continue Step (805);
Step (807): Automatically transmit a precaution reporting signal to the server 41 through the Internet 31, and continue Step (805); and
Step (808): Receive the physiological parameter history data or threshold of the user 10 downloaded from the server 41 to the originally logged-on gateway 12, and save the physiological parameter history data or threshold of the user 10, and continue Step (805).
Referring to
Step (901): Receive the first packet transmitted from the gateway 22 and decode the first packet to obtain an identification code of the wireless transmission module 11 and an identification code of the gateway 22;
Step (902): Examine a logon data in its management database, and determine whether or not the received identification code of the gateway 22 is the same as the identification code of the originally logged-on gateway 12 according to the identification code of the wireless transmission module 11; if yes, then it indicates that wireless transmission module 11 is used at an installation location within the district of the originally logged-on gateway 12, and continue Step (903), or else it indicates that the wireless transmission module 11 is used in a district beyond the originally logged-on environment, and continue Step (907);
Step (903): Determine whether or not the second packet carries a precaution reporting signal. If yes, continue Step (904), or else continue Step (905);
Step (904): Start a precaution reporting mechanism, and contact a computer 51 or a telephone 61 of a related department 50 or family member 60 by email or voice phone through the Internet 31 or telephone network 71 according to the contact information (such as email address or telephone number) of the related department 50 or family member 60 of a user 10 in its management database corresponding to the identification code of a logged-on wireless transmission module 11;
Step (905): Determine whether or not the wireless transmission module 11 is used in a district beyond the originally logged-on environment. If yes, then continue Step (906), or else continue Step (901);
Step (906): Synchronously or periodically read a physiological parameter of the user 10 received by the gateway 22, and upload the identification code to the originally logged-on gateway 12 based on the originally logged-on gateway 12, and synchronously or periodically update the stored physiological parameter history data of the user 10, and continue Step (901); and
Step (907): Download the stored physiological parameter history data or threshold of the user 10, and transmit the physiological parameter history data or threshold of the user 10 from the originally logged-on gateway 12 to the currently used gateway 22 according to the identification code of the originally logged-on gateway 12, and continue Step (903).
The present invention adopts a low-cost server 41 and gateways 12, 22 to build a simple structured network platform in the Internet environment, such that the physiological parameter history data or threshold of the user 10 can be roamed between the gateways 12, 22 at different districts, and one of the gateways can access the physiological parameter history data of the user 10 collected and saved at regular time by another gateway or can access the physiological parameter threshold set by the user 10 in another gateway, and determines whether or not the life condition of the user 10 is critical, and transmits a precaution reporting signal, so that the server 41 starts the precaution reporting mechanism to immediately report to the related contact person through the Internet or telephone network based on the data (such as email address or telephone number) of a related contact person of the logged-on user 10. The system of the present invention allows a user 10 to freely travel to places without worrying about being unable to receive proper medical care and treatments. Since the physiological parameter history data or threshold of the user 10 are stored permanently in the gateway at the user's home, therefore the user 10 has absolute control and decision-making power on the history data or threshold to back up, edit and use the history data or threshold to meet the needs for emergencies.
While the invention herein disclosed has been described by means of specific embodiments, numerous modifications and variations could be made thereto by those skilled in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention set forth in the claims.