The Electronic Doctor (TED)-a home telecare system

A telecare system which enables medical practitioners to remotely assess a patient's vital signs using an integrated multi-functional sensor arrangement and an existing narrowband telephone network and the innovative design includes secondary checking functions resulting in a reliable sensor arrangement at very low cost.

Abstract

Describes a telecare system which enables medical practitioners to remotely assess a patient's vital signs using an integrated multi-functional sensor arrangement and an existing narrowband telephone network; it may be used as a filter by out-of-hours medical service providers to ensure that genuine emergency cases may be distinguished from more trivial requests and receive prompt attention. The system hardware in the home consists of a hand-held unit containing four simple sensors with appropriate electronic support circuitry. Data from the sensors together with duplex speech are transmitted down the telephone line to the medical practitioner's telephone where they are separated into speech and data streams. A PC displays the data using dedicated software, either as numerical values (in the case of temperature) or as a continuous trace (for ECG or breathing response, etc.). The innovative design includes secondary checking functions resulting in a reliable sensor arrangement at very low cost.