Methods and Apparatus for Processing Physiological Data Acquired from an Ambulatory Physiological Monitoring Unit

An ambulatory physiological monitoring unit, comprising:

• a physiological data acquisition module for acquiring physiological data;
• a real-time analysis module for analyzing segments of the physiological data and generating real-time analysis data;
• a storage module for storing the physiological data;
• and
• a transceiver configured to transmit the real-time analysis data to a remote monitoring center via a communications network in response to at least one event or physiological condition detected by the real-time analysis module, the transceiver further configured to transmit physiological data associated with the at least one event or physiological condition to the remote monitoring center for retrospective analysis of the physiological data.

A system for monitoring a patient, the system comprising:

• an ambulatory physiological monitoring unit, comprising:
• a physiological data acquisition module for acquiring physiological data;
• a real-time analysis module for analyzing segments of the physiological data and for generating real-time analysis data for each segment of physiological data;
• a storage module for storing the physiological data;
• and
• a transceiver for transmitting the real-time analysis data and physiological data associated with the real-time analysis data via a communications network;
• and
• a remote monitoring center in network communications with the ambulatory physiological monitoring unit, the remote monitoring center comprising:
• a transceiver for receiving the real-time analysis data and the physiological data from the ambulatory physiological monitoring unit and for transmitting messages requesting physiological data to the ambulatory physiological monitoring unit via the communications network;
• a retrospective analysis module for performing a retrospective analysis based on the physiological data and generating retrospective analysis data;
• and
• an evaluation module for evaluating the physiological status of the patient based on the real-time analysis data or the retrospective analysis data.