Method and apparatus for secure passive wireless communication with Bluetooth vitals devices
AssigneeStel Life, Inc.
InventorsSiddharth Kandan, Jonathan Pry, Carlos Roque
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Abstract
A system for transmitting and receiving medical vital signs from a “smart” vital sign apparatus over multi-protocol communication channels to and from a remote electronic health record database that may include a plurality of vital sign sources that communicate over a plurality of standard communication channels including: Bluetooth, LoRa, WiFi, cellular, Ethernet or other direct IP paths. The system reduces the volume of data transferred and extends BLE security.
Claims21
A gateway comprising:
- (a) a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) controller adapted to communicate with a plurality of BLE vital sign measuring devices (BVSMDs) located within a defined environment in which the gateway is located, the gateway defining a first gateway, the BLE controller having first provisioning data stored therein and adapted to receive, via a Bluetooth Low Energy connection, vital sign data (VSD) from BVSMDs that have been formerly provisioned with the first gateway, defining a provisioned BVSMD, each of the plurality of BVSMDs being capable of advertising its presence;
- (b) a transceiver adapted to:
- (i) transmit VSD received by the BLE controller to a remote VSD data store;
- (ii) transmit at least a portion of the first provisioning data for receipt by a second gateway located within the defined environment, the second gateway having second provisioning data stored therein and being adapted to transmit at least a portion of the second provisioning data;
- (iii) receive at least the portion of the transmitted second provisioning data;
- and,
- (iv) communicate with a remote source of provisioning data that is remote from the defined environment;
- (c) processing circuitry and memory having program code for:
- i. detecting each BVSMD advertising its presence;
- ii. if a detected BVSMD has not been formerly provisioned with the first gateway and provisioning data for the detected non-provisioned BVSMD is not available in the first or the second provisioning data, obtaining provisioning data for the detected non-provisioned BVSMD from the remote source;
- iii. mapping a MAC address of each detected BVSMD to a randomly generated access address (RGAA);
- iv. pairing each detected BVSMD to the BLE controller;
- v. employing the RGAA for communications between each detected BVSMD and the BLE controller;
- vi. generating a bonding key for each detected BVSMD;
- vii. bonding the detected BVSMD to the BLE controller with the bonding key via the RGAA;
- and,
- viii. periodically changing the RGAA.
A method of communicating vital sign data (VSD) from a plurality of non-audio streaming Bluetooth Low Energy vital sign measuring devices (BVSMDs) located within a defined environment to a health data store that is remote from the defined environment via at least one of a plurality of gateways located within the defined environment, wherein each gateway in the plurality of gateways comprises a transceiver, the method comprising, at the gateway:
- i) detecting BVSMDs advertising their presence;
- ii) correlating identification information sent by each detected BVSMD with BVSMDs known to the gateway;
- iii) mapping a MAC address of each detected BVSMD to a randomly generated access address (RGAA), unless previously mapped thereto;
- iv) automatically pairing each detected BVSMD to the gateway;
- v) employing the RGAA for communications between each detected BVSMD and the gateway;
- vi) generating a bonding key for each detected BVSMD;
- vii) bonding the detected BVSMD to the controller via the RGAA;
- viii) forming simultaneous connections between a plurality of detected BVSMDs and the gateway;
- ix) securely sharing the bonding key for the detected BVSMD among the plurality of gateways such that a BVSMD bonded to the gateway may be bonded with all gateways among the plurality of gateways in the defined environment using the shared bonding key:
- x) for BVSMDs unknown to any gateway among the plurality of gateways, obtaining BVSMD provisioning information from a remote cloud service via one or more communication protocols;
- xi) periodically changing the RGAA;
- and,
- xii) sharing the changed RGAA with all gateways among the plurality of gateways in the environment via one or more of the communication protocols.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.