| abstract |
A high percentage of preventable medical errors occur due to poor communication during the period when patient care is handed from one caregiver to another. Electronic annotations from patient specific body sensor networks are created and classified according to the caregiver and the urgency of the annotation to ensure that no information goes unnoticed during the transfer of care. Sensors (10) of each body sensor network store the annotations, and share the annotations with all the other sensors (10) in the network. The sensors (10) communicate wirelessly with a monitor (12), nurses station (14) a portable device (16) or other device (19) associated with a medical facility network to display the annotations for the caregiver on an associated display (12a, 14a, 16a, 19a). The caregiver can view, create, edit, and delete annotations with input devices (12b, 14b, 16b, 19b) as appropriate. The system can be applied in a hospital or care facility in which patients are monitored with a body sensor network based monitoring system. This includes ICUs, ERs ORs, preparation rooms, cathlabs, and diagnostic imaging rooms, as well as others. |