Importance

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Abstract

A patient monitoring system includes a pulse oximeter sensor and an audible alarm which is not produced when a blood pressure module is taking measurements, but only during that portion of the cycle that affects the pulse oximeter reading. During such measurements, the pulses detected by the oximeter decrease below a threshold T.sub.oxim. An audible alarm is caused to receive a logic level of zero by an AND gate through the detection of measurements exceeding a minimum pressure P.sub.min on the blood pressure module. The audible alarm continues to receive such a logic level until the measurements exceed a threshold P.sub.thr. After that time, the audible alarm AND gate logic level is reset to one, so as to permit reporting of pulses missing at the oximeter. None of the other alarms, such as the actual SpO.sub.2 reading, are affected by the AND gate. Accordingly, the present invention does not affect the taking of important SpO.sub.2 readings during cuff inflation/deflation and, moreover, only prevents a pulse missing audible alarm from being heard for a short period of time.

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First Claim