Hand-held medical-data capture-device having variation amplification and interoperation with electronic medical record systems
In one implementation, an apparatus estimates body core temperature from an infrared measurement of an external source point using a cubic relationship between the body core temperature and the measurement of an external source point is described, estimates temperature from a digital infrared sensor and determines vital signs from a solid-state image transducer, or determines vital signs from a solid-state image transducer and estimates body core temperature from an infrared measurement of an external source point using a cubic relationship between the body core temperature and the measurement of an external source point; after which the estimated and/or determined information is transmitted to an external database.
1. A non-touch thermometer to measure a temperature, the non-touch thermometer comprising:
a microprocessor;
a battery operably coupled to the microprocessor;
a single button operably coupled to the microprocessor;
a camera operably coupled to the microprocessor and operable to capture at least two images to a memory;
wherein the microprocessor includes a pixel-examination-module that is operable to examine a plurality of pixel values of the at least two images in the memory, a temporal-variation module that is operable to determine temporal variation of the plurality of pixel values between the at least two images, a signal processing module that is operable to amplify the temporal variation resulting in amplified temporal variation, and a vital-sign generator that is operably coupled to the signal processing module that generates at least one human vital sign from the temporal variation;
wherein determine temporal variation of the plurality of pixel values between the at least two images further comprises:
identifying pixel values of the at least two images that are representative of skin, resulting in identified pixel values;
applying a first frequency filter to the identified pixel values, yielding frequency filtered identified pixel values of the skin;
applying spatial clustering to the frequency filtered identified pixel values of the skin, yielding spatial clustered frequency filtered identified pixel values of the skin;
applying a second frequency filter to the spatial clustered frequency filtered identified pixel values of skin, yielding the temporal variation;
a wireless communication subsystem that is operably coupled to the microprocessor and that is operable to transmit a representation of the at least one human vital sign; and
a display device that is operably coupled to the microprocessor that displays the at least one human vital sign.
2. The non-touch thermometer of claim 1 , wherein the signal processing module is further configured to amplify variations of the plurality of pixel values between the at least two images.
3. The non-touch thermometer of claim 1 , wherein the signal processing module performs temporal processing.
4. The non-touch thermometer of claim 3 , wherein the first frequency filter is a bandpass filter.
5. The non-touch thermometer of claim 4 , wherein the bandpass filter is configured to analyze frequencies over time.
6. The non-touch thermometer of claim 1 , wherein applying signal processing includes spatial processing.
7. The non-touch thermometer of claim 1 wherein the wireless communication subsystem transmits to a static IP address in order to reduce IP discovery burden on the non-touch thermometer.
8. The non-touch thermometer of claim 1 wherein a connection is established and data is pushed from the non-touch thermometer through the wireless communication subsystem, thereafter an external device controls flow of the data between the non-touch thermometer and the external device, wherein the connection further comprises: an authenticated communication channel.
9. The non-touch thermometer of claim 1 , wherein the wireless communication subsystem further comprises:
a component that is operable to transmit a representation of date and time, operator ID, patient identification and manufacturer, model number and firmware revision of the non-touch thermometer.
10. The non-touch thermometer of claim 1 further comprising:
an infrared sensor operably coupled to the microprocessor,
wherein the microprocessor is operable to receive from the infrared sensor a signal that is representative of an infrared signal detected by the infrared sensor and the microprocessor is operable to determine a temperature from the signal that is representative of the infrared signal.
11. The non-touch thermometer of claim 10 further comprising:
wherein the temperature further comprises a body core temperature and wherein determining the body core temperature is based on a cubic relationship representing three thermal ranges between a numerical representation of electromagnetic energy of an external source point and the body core temperature, wherein the cubic relationship includes a coefficient representative of different relationships between the external source point and the body core temperature in the three thermal ranges.
12. The non-touch thermometer of claim 1 further comprising:
a cropper that is operable to receive at least two images and that is operable to crop each of the images to exclude a border area of the images, generating at least two cropped images.