Wearable medical device data connectivity system and method

1 . A method for optimizing Bluetooth connectivity between wearable health monitoring devices and a plurality of bedside Medical Device Data System (MDDS) devices within or about a healthcare facility using a network of proxy computing devices, said healthcare facility having a plurality of patients and a central monitoring MDDS for sending data from said healthcare facility to an EMR, the method comprising the steps of:

a Bluetooth descriptor with a specific patient, said Bluetooth descriptor obtained from a patient assigned wearable device so that each patient has at least one uniquely identifiable wearable device, so that a plurality of uniquely identifiable wearable devices are created;

a software-defined Bluetooth interface comprising an upper virtual Bluetooth stack layer executed on the MDDS and a complementary lower virtual Bluetooth stack layer executed on the proxy, the lower layer communicating with the medical device via physical Bluetooth and with the MDDS via said network-transport messages;

enabling said MDDS devices and said proxy computing devices within or about said facility to identify said uniquely identifiable wearable devices;

wherein said MDDS devices and said proxy computing devices monitor and send proximity and signal strength data associated with each of said uniquely identifiable wearable devices to the central monitoring MDDS unit, said central monitoring MDDS unit sending control signals to effect pairing and unpairing of each of said wearable devices with particular ones of said MDDS devices and said proxy computing devices based upon signal strength.

2 . The method of claim 1 wherein each of said MDDS devices is associated with a patient bed location.

3 . The method of claim 1 wherein said proxy computing devices are stationary.

4 . The method of claim 1 wherein said proxy computing devices can be smartphones, laptops, tablets, smartwatches, computers, or IoT devices.

5 . The method of claim 1 wherein said proxy computing devices are roaming.

6 . The method of claim 1 wherein said proxy computing devices are associated with health care personnel employed at the facility.

7 . The method of claim 1 wherein said MDDS devices and said proxy computing devices are Bluetooth hotspots, and said wearable devices dynamically switch between said hotspots based upon proximity and signal strength.

8 . The method of claim 1 wherein the Bluetooth descriptor associated with said wearable device is a MAC address of the wearable device.

9 . The method of claim 1 wherein the Bluetooth descriptor from said wearable device is a serial number from said wearable device.

10 . A method for optimizing Bluetooth connectivity between wearable health monitoring devices and a plurality of bedside Medical Device Data System (MDDS) devices within or about a healthcare facility using a network of proxy computing devices, said healthcare facility having a plurality of patients, the method comprising the steps of:

associating a Bluetooth descriptor with a specific patient, said Bluetooth descriptor obtained from a patient assigned wearable device so that each patient has at least one uniquely identifiable wearable device, so that a plurality of uniquely identifiable wearable devices are created;

a software-defined Bluetooth interface comprising an upper virtual Bluetooth stack layer executed on the MDDS and a complementary lower virtual Bluetooth stack layer executed on the proxy, the lower layer communicating with the medical device via physical Bluetooth and with the MDDS via said network-transport messages;

enabling said MDDS devices and said proxy computing devices within or about said facility to identify said uniquely identifiable wearable devices;

wherein said MDDS devices and said proxy computing devices monitor and send proximity and signal strength data associated with each of said uniquely identifiable wearable devices to a central monitoring MDDS unit, said central monitoring MDDS unit sending control signals to effect pairing and unpairing of each of said wearable devices with particular ones of said MDDS devices and said proxy computing devices based upon signal strength;

whereby data from said wearable devices can be transmitted to an EMR by said central monitoring MDDS unit.

11 . The method of claim 10 wherein each of said MDDS devices is associated with a patient bed location.

12 . The method of claim 10 wherein said proxy computing devices are stationary.

13 . The method of claim 10 wherein said proxy computing devices can be smartphones, laptops, tablets, smartwatches, computers, or IoT devices.

14 . The method of claim 13 wherein said proxy computing devices are roaming.

15 . The method of claim 10 wherein said proxy computing devices are associated with health care personnel employed at the facility.

16 . The method of claim 10 wherein said MDDS devices and said proxy computing devices are Bluetooth hotspots, and said wearable devices dynamically switch between said hotspots based upon proximity and signal strength.

17 . The method of claim 10 wherein the Bluetooth descriptor associated with said wearable device is a MAC address of the wearable device.

18 . The method of claim 10 wherein the Bluetooth descriptor from said wearable device is a serial number from said wearable device.

19 . A medical data acquisition system comprising:

(a) a plurality of proxy-capable computing devices, each proxy-capable computing device being a stationary or mobile, including user-carried device that

(i) that is capable of executing third-party application software, and

(ii) provides programmatic access to a Bluetooth radio, the third-party software including a proxy driver operative to establish a physical Bluetooth communication link with a medical device;

(b) at least one Medical Device Data System (MDDS) computing device that lacks a physical, but exposes a virtual Bluetooth interface and is configured to execute a software application that is functionally equivalent to a vendor-supplied companion equivalent application normally executed on a patient's smartphone for direct Bluetooth communication with the medical device;

(c) a Medical Data Governance (MDG) controller configured to:

(i) identify one or more target medical devices and distribute corresponding Bluetooth identifiers to the proxy-capable computing devices;

(ii) receive reports from the proxy-capable computing devices indicating detection of Bluetooth broadcast signals from the medical devices; and

(iii) select, based on the reports, one of the proxy-capable computing devices to act as an active proxy for a particular medical device;

(d) wherein the active proxy, under direction of the MDG controller, establishes said physical Bluetooth link with the medical device and transforms Bluetooth-protocol communications into network-transport messages transmitted across a wireless or wired network to the MDDS computing device;

(e) wherein the MDDS computing device receives said network-transport messages through a software-defined Bluetooth interface that emulates a physical Bluetooth connection, such that the companion-equivalent application on the MDDS computing device interfaces with the medical device as though directly paired via Bluetooth;

(f) wherein said software-defined Bluetooth interface comprises an upper virtual Bluetooth stack layer executed on the MDDS and a complementary lower virtual Bluetooth stack layer executed on the active proxy, the lower layer communicating with the medical device via physical Bluetooth and with the MDDS via said network-transport messages; and

(g) wherein the proxy-capable computing devices collectively form a dynamic, opportunistic mesh, such that any proxy-capable device carried by medical personnel can temporarily function as the active proxy when in proximity to the medical device, under orchestration of the MDG controller.