Importance

Loading Importance Indicators...

Abstract

An automated, computerized system for vicariously and remotely monitoring the conditions of a patient, providing professional counseling, and coaching the patient into sound behavior and health-enhancing activities. A computerized central installation receives, over a public communication network, patient's vital sign measurements such as blood pressure, glucose level, and pulse rate. The measurements are gathered at the patient's residence by a battery of instrumental monitoring devices, polled by the central installation at scheduled intervals, automatically checked by a central processing unit against preset limits and analyzed to generate diagnostics and assessments of patient's condition and are stored in libraries. The diagnostics and assessments are used to selectively retrieve from a data bank of prerecorded messages, feedback advice, past performance charts and motivating audiovisual programs stored in libraries. If warranted, health professionals are alerted so that they can intervene and contact the patient directly. The communications between the central installation and the patient are scripted by a computer program routine to mimic a natural telephone conversation.

Loading the Abstract Image...

First Claim