Advantages of the invention may become apparent upon reading the following detailed description and upon reference to the drawings in which:
One or more specific embodiments of the present invention will be described below. In an effort to provide a concise description of these embodiments, not all features of an actual implementation are described in the specification. It should be appreciated that in the development of any such actual implementation, as in any engineering or design project, numerous implementation-specific decisions must be made to achieve the developers' specific goals, such as compliance with system-related and business-related constraints, which may vary from one implementation to another. Moreover, it should be appreciated that such a development effort might be complex and time consuming, but would nevertheless be a routine undertaking of design, fabrication, and manufacture for those of ordinary skill having the benefit of this disclosure.
For at least the reasons set forth above, an improved system or method for interacting with a medical monitoring device would be desirable. A possible solution for resolving one or more of the issues set forth above involves issuing voice commands to the medical device rather than physically manipulating controls. However, this solution raises new concerns.
First, the medical device should not react to simple complaints from patients or visitors. Medical devices often have loud alarms to alert caregivers that something requires their attention. If an alarm sounds, the patient or a visitor typically should not be allowed to tell the medical device to quiet the alarm. In addition, it may be desirable to prevent some medical personnel from performing all of the functions on a given medical device. For example, an orderly typically may not be able to command a medical device to alter a patient's treatment.
Second, in medical devices that store patient information, security measures typically should ensure patient privacy. Some medical devices store historical data on the patient which the caregiver can reference for comparisons. For example, a pulse oximeter may record trends in the patient's blood-oxygen saturation level, so that a caregiver can determine whether treatment is improving the patient's condition. Accordingly, it may be desirable to allow only certain personnel to access the patient's medical history.
One or more of the embodiments set forth below may be directed towards one or more of the issues discussed above.
Turning initially to
The medical device 10 may also include a sensor 16 that may be connected to a body part (e.g., finger, forehead, toe, or earlobe) of a patient or a user. The sensor 16 may be configured to emit signals or waves into the patient's or user's tissue and detect these signals or waves after dispersion and/or reflection by the tissue. For example, the sensor 16 may be configured to emit light from two or more light emitting diodes (“LEDs”) into pulsatile tissue (e.g., finger, forehead, toe, or earlobe) and then detect the transmitted light with a light detector (e.g., a photodiode or photo-detector) after the light has passed through the pulsatile tissue.
As those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate, the amount of transmitted light that passes through the tissue generally varies in accordance with a changing amount of blood constituent in the tissue and the related light absorption. On a beat-by-beat basis, the heart pumps an incremental amount of arterial blood into the pulsatile tissue, which then drains back through the venous system. The amount of light that passes through the blood-perfused tissue varies with the cardiac-induced cycling arterial blood volume. For example, when the cardiac cycle causes more light-absorbing blood to be present in the tissue, less light travels through the tissue to strike the sensor's photo-detector. These pulsatile signals allow the medical device 10 to measure signal continuation caused by the tissue's arterial blood, because light absorption from other tissues remains generally unchanged in the relevant time span.
In alternate embodiments, the sensor 16 may take other suitable forms beside the form illustrated in
The medical device 10 may also include an integral microphone 22. As will be described further below, the integral microphone 22 may be configured to receive voice commands from a caregiver or user that can be processed into commands for the medical device 10. Although
The medical device 10 may also include a speaker 23, which may be configured to broadcast alerts to a caregiver or user. Although
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As illustrated in
As will be described further below, the medical device 10 may be configured to execute voice commands from users, such as caregivers. However, as will be appreciated, many other unauthorized individuals (e.g., patients, guests) may also try to give voice commands to the medical device. For example, a patient, annoyed with an alert, may try to use voice commands to silence an alert before the caregiver hears the alarm. Alternatively, a conversation around the medical device could be interpreted by the medical device 10 as a voice command. For example, the medical device 10 could accidentally interpret the question “When will my ventilator be turned off,” as command to turn off the patient's ventilator. This is clearly undesirable.
For at least these reasons, the medical device 10 may be configured to prevent unauthorized or accidental voice commands from occurring. For example,
The technique 40 may begin by receiving an “unlock” keyword or sound, as indicated by block 42. For example, in one embodiment, the keyword may be a simple word, such as “unlock” or “start.” However, in alternate embodiments, the keyword may be a more linguistically complex word, such as a nonsensical or foreign word to discourage unauthorized access to the medical device. In one embodiment, the medical device 10 may recognize a keyword using the techniques for voice recognition set forth in commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______ entitled SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR INTEGRATING VOICE WITH A MEDICAL DEVICE and filed on Sep. 29, 2006, which is hereby incorporated by reference.
After receiving the unlock keyword, the technique 40 may include unlocking a voice interface of the medical device 10 to voice commands, as set indicated in block 44. For example, in one embodiment, the medical device 10 may start to execute voice commands after receiving the unlock keyword. After the medical device 10 has been unlocked, the technique 40 may continue by executing subsequent voice commands, as indicated by block 46.
As illustrated in
As described above, the medical device 10 may be configured to unlock and/or lock its voice interface based on one or more keywords. Accordingly,
As illustrated in
The audio signal receiver 60 may be configured to transmit the analog electrical wave to an audio sampling system 62. The audio sampling system 62 may be configured to sample the electronic analog waveform to create digital voice data. For example, in one embodiment, the audio sampling system 62 may be configured to sample the electronic analog waveform 16,000 times per second to create a digital waveform of pulse amplitudes. In alternate embodiments, other suitable sampling techniques may be employed.
An audio processing system 64 may be configured to receive the digital waveform and to convert the digital waveform into frequencies that can be recognized by an audio recognition system 66. In one embodiment, the audio processing system 64 may be configured to perform a fast fourier transform on the incoming digital waveform to generate a plurality of frequencies. The audio processing system 64 may then transmit the plurality of frequencies to the audio recognition system 66.
The audio recognition system 66 may be pre-populated or programmed with a plurality of frequency combinations that are associated with commands for the medical device 10. For example, frequency combinations associated with the audio command “turn off alarm” may be associated with a command for the medical device 10 to silence an alarm. As mentioned above, in one embodiment, the particular frequency combinations may be pre-programmed or pre-configured. However, in alternate embodiments, the frequency combinations may be programmed into the audio recognition system by another suitable system.
In addition, besides recognizing a command for the oximeter 10, the audio recognition system 66 may be configured to identify keywords to unlock and/or lock the voice interface of the medical device 10. For example, the audio recognition system 66 may be configured to access a keyword database 68 and to compare spoken combinations of frequencies as keywords that unlock and/or lock the medical device 10. As such, the audio recognition system 66 may be configured to instruct a medical device control system 70 to accept voice commands after an unlock keyword is spoken and/or to stop executing voice commands after a lock keyword is spoken.
In another embodiment, a medical device may employ one or more suitable forms of biometric recognition to unlock and/or lock itself. For example,
In addition, the medical device 80 may include the biometric reader 82, which may be configured to recognize a biometric signature of a user (e.g., fingerprint, eye shape, facial contours, and the like). The biometric reader 82 may be configured to unlock and/or lock the medical device 80 to voice commands based on the biometric signature. In one embodiment, the biometric reader 82 may include a fingerprint scanner. In another embodiment, the biometric reader 82 may comprise a retinal scanner configured to conditioned access based upon the shape of a user's eye. In still other embodiments, the biometric reader 82 may comprise a video camera configured to conditioned access based on one or more facial or body features. In yet another embodiment, the biometric reader 82 may include an optical spectrometer.
In yet another embodiment, the biometric reader 82 may be configured to recognize a user voiceprint. For example, the biometric reader 82 may be configured to be able to receive and recognize an authorized user by their voice. Accordingly, in this embodiment, the medical device may be configured to unlock when it detects an authorized user voice and to lock in the absence of that voice. It will be appreciated, however, that the above-described examples of the biometric reader 82 are merely exemplary, and, as such, not intended to be exclusive. Accordingly, in other embodiments, other alternate suitable biometric readers 82 may be employed.
As described above, the medical device 10 may be configured to execute voice commands from caregivers. As will be appreciated, however, modern patient rooms, operating rooms, doctors' offices, and the like, include a plurality of different medical devices. For example, a patient's room may have a pulse oximeter, a respirator, and a multi-parameter monitoring system. Moreover, a single patient room may include multiple patients and, as such, multiple incarnations of each device, which are each configured to employ voice commands. Although such a configuration is advantageous from a cross-contamination standpoint, having multiple medical devices that each accept voice commands may introduce some measure of confusion between the medical devices. For example, a voice command directed to an oximeter to “turn off” could be executed by a ventilator with disastrous results. Alternatively, an unlock command to one pulse oximeter in a patient's room may be received by another pulse oximeter in the same room—allowing potentially unauthorized access to the other pulse oximeter. For at least these reasons, one or more of the embodiments set forth below may be directed toward identification and specification of voice commands for a particular medical device.
As described above, the voice commands from a caregiver directed towards the medical device 94a, for example, may be received by the medical device 94b. As such, the medical devices 94a and 94b may be configured to employ preparatory identification commands. More specifically, in one embodiment, the medical devices 94a and 94b may be configured to only execute those voice commands preceded by a medical device specific identifier. For example, in one embodiment, each of medical devices 94a and 94b may have a unique numerical designation. In this embodiment, a caregiver may direct voice commands to the medical device 94a by prefacing voice commands with the number one and may direct voice commands to the medical device 94b by prefacing commands with the number two.
In one embodiment, the medical devices 94a and 94b may also include labels that visually designate their unique identifiers to the caregiver. For example, the medical device 94a may have a large sticker with the number one and the medical device 94b have a large sticker with the number two. It will be appreciated, however, that numerical identifiers are merely one suitable type of unique identifier. As such, in alternate embodiments, the medical devices 94a and 94b may be assigned other suitable numbers, letters, words, and so-forth. For example, each of the medical devices 94a and 94b may be assigned a unique name to identify it.
In still other embodiments, other techniques for identifying the target medical device 10 for a voice command may be employed. For example, in one embodiment, the medical devices 94a and 94b may include a sensor configured to receive a laser or other light beam. In this embodiment, the caregiver may use a laser pointer to designate the intended medical device. For example, medical devices 94a and 94b may be configured to receive voice commands and/or unlock (as described above) when the caregiver directs a laser beam at that particular medical device 94a and 94b. In this way, medical devices 94a and 94b will only execute those voice commands intended for them.
While the invention may be susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments have been shown by way of example in the drawings and have been described in detail herein. However, it should be understood that the invention is not intended to be limited to the particular forms disclosed. Rather, the invention is to cover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the following appended claims. Indeed, as described above the present techniques may not only be applied to pulse oximeters, but also to a number of other suitable medical devices