System for determining confidence in respiratory rate measurements

A system for determining multiparameter confidence in a respiratory rate measurement from a medical patient, the system comprising:

• an optical sensor comprising:
• a light emitter configured to impinge light on body tissue of a living patient, the body tissue comprising pulsating blood, and
• a detector responsive to the light after attenuation by the body tissue, wherein the detector is configured to generate a photoplethysmographic signal indicative of a physiological characteristic of the living patient;
• an ECG sensor configured to obtain an electrical signal from the living patient;
• an acoustic sensor, the acoustic sensor configured to obtain an acoustic respiratory signal from the living patient;
• and
• a processor configured to:
• derive a first respiratory rate measurement from the acoustic respiratory signal,
• derive a second respiratory rate measurement from one or both of the photoplethysmographic signal and the electrical signal,
• use the second respiratory rate measurement to calculate a confidence associated with the first respiratory rate measurement, the confidence indicating a degree to which the first respiratory rate measurement accurately reflects a respiratory rate of the living patient, and
• output instructions for displaying safety zones together with a confidence indicator responsive to the confidence to a display, the confidence indicator comprising a probability distribution having a peak corresponding to at least one of the first and second respiratory rate measurements and a distribution dispersion depending at least on the confidence,
• wherein a visual position on the display of the confidence indicator with respect to the safety zones reflects a degree of safety risk to the living patient.

A system for determining confidence in a respiratory rate measurement from a medical patient, the system comprising:

• a first physiological sensor configured to obtain a physiological signal from a living patient, the first physiological sensor comprising at least one of the following:
• an ECG sensor, a bioimpedance sensor, a capnography sensor, and an optical sensor;
• an acoustic sensor configured to obtain an acoustic respiratory signal from the living patient;
• and
• a processor configured to:
• obtain a first respiratory rate measurement from the physiological signal,
• obtain a second respiratory rate measurement from the acoustic respiratory signal, and
• calculate a confidence associated with the first respiratory rate measurement based at least on a comparison between the first and second respiratory rate measurements and reflecting a degree to which the first and second respiratory rate measurements correspond to each other;
• and
• a display configured to output a safety spectrum together with a confidence indicator responsive to the confidence, the confidence indicator comprising a probability distribution having a peak corresponding to at least one of the first and second respiratory rate measurements and a distribution dispersion depending at least on the confidence;
• wherein a visual position on the display of the confidence indicator with respect to the safety spectrum reflects a degree of safety risk to the living patient.

A method of analyzing respiratory rate monitoring parameters to determine confidence in a measured respiratory rate, the method comprising:

• obtaining, with a processor, a first rate respiratory measurement from a first physiological device, the first physiological device comprising an acoustic sensor;
• obtaining, with the processor, a second rate respiratory measurement from a second physiological device;
• determining, with the processor, a multiparameter confidence measure associated with the first respiratory measurement based at least on a comparison between the first and second respiratory rate measurements and reflecting a degree to which the first and second respiratory rate measurements correspond to each other, wherein said determining comprises determining a relatively higher multiparameter confidence measure when the first and second respiratory rate measurements have a relatively higher degree of correspondence to each other and a relatively lower multiparameter confidence measure when the first and second respiratory rate measurements have a relatively lower degree of correspondence to each other;
• and
• displaying, with a display, a safety spectrum together with a visual confidence indicator reflecting the multiparameter confidence measure, the visual confidence indicator comprising a probability distribution having a peak corresponding to at least one of the first and second respiratory rate measurements and a distribution dispersion depending at least on the multiparameter confidence measure,
• wherein a visual position of the visual confidence indicator with respect to the safety spectrum reflects a degree of safety risk to a patient.