Graphical ‘mapping system’ for continuously monitoring a patient's vital signs, motion, and location

A system for continuously monitoring a plurality of patients, the system comprising:

• a plurality of patient monitors, each patient monitor configured to be worn on the body of one of the plurality of patients, each patient monitor comprising:
• a first sensor comprising a first detector configured to detect a first time-dependent physiological waveform indicative of one or more contractile properties of the patient's heart;
• a second sensor comprising a second detector configured to detect a second time-dependent physiological waveform indicative of one or more contractile properties of the patient's heart;
• at least two motion-detecting sensors positioned on locations selected from a forearm, upper arm, and a body location other than the forearm or upper arm of the patient, each of the motion-detecting sensors generating at least one motion waveform indicative of motion of a body location onto which the motion-detecting sensor is affixed;
• a location sensor comprising a wireless component and a location processing component, the location processing component configured to receive a signal from the wireless component and process this signal to determine a physical location of the patient to which the location sensor is attached;
• a processing component configured to receive the time-dependent physiological and motion waveforms and determine therefrom:
• (i) at least one vital sign calculated using at least one of the first and second time-dependent physiological waveforms;
• (ii) motion parameters corresponding to the patient's posture and activity state calculated using at least one motion waveform generated by each of the motion-detecting sensors;
• and (iii) an alarm parameter calculated from the at least one of the vital sign and motion parameters;
• and,
• a wireless transceiver configured to wirelessly transmit the vital sign, motion parameter, location of the patient, and alarm parameter through a wireless system;
• and,
• a remote computer system comprising a display and an interface to the wireless system,
• the interface configured to receive from the wireless system a vital sign, motion parameter, location of the patient, and motion-dependent alarm parameter corresponding to each of the plurality of patients, and
• the display configured to render a first user interface that, for each patient in the plurality of patients, displays (i) at least one vital sign, (ii) a graphical icon simultaneously indicating patient posture and activity state, (iii) a location of the patient, and (iv) motion-dependent alarm parameter, and to render a second user interface that displays a map corresponding to a monitored area of a hospital, the map depicting the current location of each patient in the plurality of patients within the monitored area of the hospital.