Enhanced wireless communication for medical devices

Inventors

Landgraf, Connor • Gershtein, Eugene • Crouch, Tyler

Assignees

Eko Health Inc

Abstract

Methods and apparatuses for wireless communication between medical devices are provided. In some embodiments, commodity low power, low bandwidth communication protocols may be utilized to simultaneously convey multiple signals with high fidelity and reliability. For example, cardiac sound data and ECG data may be compressed using a common ADPCM component and inserted into a common BLE packet structure. Command-control data may also be inserted. Where required command-control data reporting frequency is less than the packet frequency, header bits may be utilized to convey multiple types of command-control data in a given packet byte position. Rolling packet sequence values may be inserted into the common packet structure, for use by receiving devices to identify link integrity failures.

Core Innovation

The invention provides a method for collecting diagnostic data from a heart of a subject by using a monitoring device having an ECG sensor and an audio sensor to measure ECG data and audio data from the heart. The monitoring device inserts both the ECG data and the audio data into a common packet structure for wireless communication, and the ECG data and the audio data are transmitted wirelessly to a computing device separate from the monitoring device using the common packet structure.

The computing device processes the ECG data and the audio data to provide an output indicative of the state or condition of the heart of the subject. In related implementations, the ECG data and the audio data are compressed using a common compression component, and a common compression component such as an ADPCM encoder is used to compress the ECG data and the audio data.

Signal conditioning and transmission packaging support reliable wireless data transport and diagnosis. The ECG data and the audio data are filtered using a lowpass filter that attenuates frequency components above 2 kHz, and the transmitted payloads are combined into an optimized single BLE packet structure that includes header information and command-control data.

Claims Coverage

The independent claims cover diagnostic data collection that measures both ECG data and audio data, packages and transmits the data wirelessly using a common packet structure or common compression component, and processes the data at a separate computing device to output an indication of the heart’s state or condition. Across the independent claim set, the inventive features focus on joint ECG/audio acquisition, common packaging/compression, and wireless transmission to a separate computing device for processing output.

Taken together, the independent claims require measurement of both ECG data and audio data from the heart with an ECG sensor and an audio sensor, use of common packet structure and/or a common compression component to combine the ECG and audio data, wireless transmission to a separate computing device, and processing at the computing device to produce an output indicative of the heart’s state or condition. Dependent refinements in the provided material further specify BLE communications, lowpass filtering attenuating frequency components above 2 kHz, and rolling packet sequence/link integrity warning behavior.

Stated Advantages

Documented Applications