US 5,561,412 A · Patient/nurse call system

Abstract

A patient/nurse call system for a hospital includes patient stations capable of generating hospital calls and a remote master station which prioritizes and stores the calls. Hall units outside patient rooms identify the rooms from which the calls originate and the type of call. Each patient station allows selective retrieval and display of unanswered calls, and the system further permits audio interconnection between any two of the stations. Nurse-worn badges transmit pulse-coded infrared signals which are received by receivers at the patient stations and in response, the system generates identity and location signals which are stored at the master station. The nurse location and identity information may also be retrieved and displayed at any patient station. Receipt of a nurse's infrared signal at a room station automatically cancels a patient call originating from the room and display thereof by the respective hall unit, while actuating a display to indicate nurse presence. Bed monitoring units also interconnect to the patient stations to generate signals related to bed status.

Claims35

Dependent claims

A patient/nurse call system for a hospital comprising:

a plurality of transmitters, each transmitter adapted to periodically transmit a pulse-coded infrared signal;
a plurality of patient stations, each patient station being located in a patient room in the hospital and including a receiver to receive and validate a pulse-coded infrared signal from any of the transmitters and generate a corresponding transmitter identification signal;
a signal processor operatively connected to the patient stations to receive each of the transmitter identification signals and generate a signal pair comprising the transmitter identification signal and a respective location identification signal, the location identification signal being representative of the location of the patient station which received the transmitter identification signal;
a master station operatively connected to the signal processor and adapted to receive and store the signal pairs in a memory;
and
each patient station further including a control to initiate a retrieval of the stored signal pairs from the master station, thereby disseminating transmitter identity and location identity information to any patient station upon a request from said any patient station.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Patient/nurse call system

Life of this patent

Patient/nurse call system

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims35