JPH0795962A - Home health care aid system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To achieve a streamlining of home care by a method wherein various neces sary physiological information is detected with devices equipped at the residences of patients and sent physiological or emergency information is sent to an information collection center with telephone lines to be stored while being transmitted to hospitals in charge. CONSTITUTION:At the residence 1 of a patient, for example a case under the care with an oxygen concentrator 3, physiological information which is detected with a frequency of breathing sensor 4, a blood oxygen saturation sensor 5 and a handy electrocardiograph 6 mounted on the patient is transmitted punctually to an information collection center 30 with a telephone line 51 from a communication apparatus 10 while being transmitted temporarily at emergency. At the information collection center 30, the physiological information is inputted into a computer 31 through a modem 32 and recorded into a large-capacity memory 34 to manage. Also at the information collection center 30, the physiological information is sorted on emergency, periodical and monthly basis and transmitted to a facsimile 41 or a hospital 40 in charge via a telephone circuit 52 from a facsimile 33. The physiological information is Judged by a physician in charge for doctor's questions or necessary treatment. This enables the streamlining of home health care thereby making the patients at ease.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a home therapy support system relating to medical information and medical equipment for various diseases which require treatment at home for a long period of time, such as a patient who performs home oxygen therapy.

[0002]

2. Description of the Prior Art Patients with chronic diseases such as respiratory diseases, high blood pressure, and diabetes that require long-term treatment should be treated regularly based on the doctor's prescription, or periodically or according to the symptoms at that time. He manages his health by going to the hospital. In this case, there are considerable problems for the doctor to accurately grasp the health condition and compliance of the patient and to give appropriate guidance.

[0003] For example, in the case of a home oxygen therapy patient, his / her physical strength is exhausted during an outpatient visit, and blood oxygen saturation is lower than normal during regular diagnosis. For patients living in mountainous areas and remote islands, the physical burden of going to the hospital is a problem. It is also important for the doctor to make a diagnosis as to whether or not the patient is inhaling the high-concentration oxygen generated from the oxygen concentrator according to the prescription.

In response to such a problem, various systems have been proposed for managing the health condition of patients and the use status of medical devices by utilizing computer communication.

As an example disclosed in the publication, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 4-1
No. 5035 (home care support system), Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2-
There are JP-A-246464 (inspection information transmission system), JP-A-63-252137 (electronic device for medical diagnosis) and JP-A-63-79443 (human health monitor).

[0006]

However, in these conventional systems, there are problems that the device cost becomes very high when the system is put into practical use, and the operation after the system is introduced is difficult.

That is, in general, the system configuration is such that the biological information relating to the physiology of a home patient is directly transmitted from the device installed in the patient's home to the computer of the information collection center installed in the hospital. On the hospital side,
You must own a computer. However, since most hospitals have 10 to 100 or less patients, it is often hesitant to introduce a dedicated computer.

Further, in the case of a system in which a commercially available facsimile is installed on the hospital side, it is necessary for an apparatus installed in a patient's home to have an image conversion function and a facsimile transmission function, which is not cost effective. Furthermore, in order to perform a diagnosis over time, when a memory function for recording the patient's biological information for a long period of time is required, the computer must be installed in the hospital side as well.

On the other hand, for patients who continue to receive treatment at home, in addition to their daily physical condition, a thermometer, a simple electrocardiograph, a blood oxygen saturation meter, and the like are used for measurement, and the results are recorded in a medical treatment diary. . This will be presented to a doctor when going to the hospital for diagnosis, but in reality there are many problems as follows. That is, the patient should continue to write a medical treatment diary accurately every day, operate the measuring instrument correctly and store the result, the frequency of hospital visits, and the response to sudden changes in condition.

To solve this problem, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 4-56561
Although system proposals such as Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 4-15035 and Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 4-15035 are disclosed, it is necessary to install a computer at an information center on the hospital side, and the overall system cost increases.

[0011]

OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to reduce the number of times a patient visits a hospital, write a medical treatment diary, reduce the burden of physical condition measurement, and reduce the number of patients in the home treatment of various diseases. The aim is to provide an emergency home care support system at a lower cost than before, in addition to providing an emergency response in the event of a sudden change. In particular, it is to provide a system capable of promptly transmitting information about an abnormality such as a patient's operation error or a device failure.

[0012]

DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION The present invention provides a home-use communication device which is arranged in each patient's home and has a transmitting means for transmitting medical information relating to physiological information of a home-use patient to an information collecting center, and the information collecting equipment. A medical information collecting device, which is arranged in the center and has a receiving means for receiving the medical information transmitted from the home-use communication device, and a facsimile means for transmitting the medical information to the hospital, and the medical information collecting device, which is arranged in the hospital. And a receiving device having a facsimile means for receiving the information transmitted from the medical information collecting device, a home communication device, a public telephone line connecting the medical information collecting device and the receiving device. A home therapy support system, wherein the home communication device has abnormality detecting means for determining whether or not there is a detection abnormality of physiological information. At-home therapy support, which is adapted to communicate as converted information, and / or is provided with communication error determination means for the medical information collection device to determine a facsimile transmission error to the reception device for each hospital. It provides a system.

It is expected that such a home therapy support system can easily realize at low cost the vital information from a home patient to be processed and transmitted to each hospital.

In addition to the medical information signal, the system of the present invention may include a signal of information relating to the medical device for treating the home patient and / or its operation, if necessary. Home care support system is included. With this home therapy support system, the operating state of the medical device for treatment can be comprehended as well.
There is an advantage that the doctor can easily grasp the usage status of the device by the patient in the home treatment using the respiratory gas supply device as described in Japanese Patent No. 143451.

[0015]

In the present invention, medical data from the patient's home is delivered to the doctor in charge by facsimile via the information collection center. Since the center computer performs high-level processing such as statistical processing of data, image conversion, and database management, the functions of the communication device installed in the patient's home can be simplified. In addition, a low-priced modem that can transmit data via a telephone line can be used, which is about the same price as personal computer communication that has become popular in recent years. On the other hand, there is no need to install a special receiving device in the hospital, and commercially available facsimiles can be used, so not only does the cost of the entire system be lower than before, but even in hospitals that treat several home patients, It has become possible to implement the home therapy support system according to the present invention.

[0016]

1 and 2 show an embodiment of the present invention. Figure 1
Shows the overall configuration, and FIG. 2 shows the details of the communication device (10) installed at home.

In FIG. 1, (1) is a home where the patient lives, and the patient performs home oxygen therapy while inhaling a high concentration of oxygen from the oxygen concentrator (3).

As will be described in detail later, in the communication device (10) installed in the patient's home, in addition to the operation information of the oxygen concentrator, the patient's inquiry information, respiratory rate, blood oxygen saturation, pulse, cardiac wave. Medical information such as shape is captured. These pieces of information are transmitted by the modem (12) via the public telephone line (51) to the computer (31) installed in the information collecting center (30) which is a medical information collecting device. A modem (32) is connected to the computer (31), which enables medical information communication with each home. The medical information transmitted from each home is recorded and managed in the large-capacity storage device (34). In FIG. 1, (4) represents a sensor means for detecting the respiratory rate of the patient, (5) is a detection probe means for measuring the blood oxygen saturation of the patient, and (6) is a simple Represents an electrocardiograph.

Here, the stored medical information of each patient is
An outline, for example, the following three types of reports are prepared according to the intended use. That is, an emergency report, a regular report, and a monthly report. The form of information sent from home is
Since it is a character string or a numerical value sequence obtained by quantizing an electrocardiographic waveform, etc., the information is image-converted into the above report format and connected from a facsimile (33) to a computer to a public telephone line. Facsimile (41) installed in the hospital (40) where the patient visits via (52)
Sent to the doctor in charge.

In such a home therapy support system, if the facsimile (41) has a failure, for example, the power is turned off or the paper is out, it becomes impossible to send and the report cannot be delivered to the doctor in charge. The problem occurs. To address this issue, a computer (31)
Has a function to judge unsuccessful sending by hospital, and automatically displays a list of unsendable faxes by patient and hospital.
In addition to printing out, when there is no person on the information center side on holidays, etc., the fact that transmission is not possible has been notified to the persons concerned via a pager (not shown). As a result, the information center can notify the hospital of the abnormality, wait for the facsimile to be restored, and re-transmit it.

Next, the communication device (10) will be described with reference to FIG. The communication device includes a CPU (11), a modem (12) for performing data communication with a computer of an information center through a public telephone line, and a communication interface (13) for receiving device operation information from the oxygen concentrator (3). , An interface (14) for connecting a sensor (4) for detecting the respiration rate of the patient, and a detection probe (5) attached to the finger of the patient
A measuring unit (15) for connecting to each other to measure blood oxygen saturation and pulse rate, and an interface (16) for receiving electrocardiographic waveform data measured by a simple electrocardiograph (6) by optical transmission,
Liquid crystal graphic display (1) for interacting with patients
7) and touch panel (18), calendar function unit (19) for time management, sound generation unit (20) such as buzzer, and push button (21) for starting medical data measurement
Composed of.

The communication device informs the patient of the time of measurement from the sound generation unit at a fixed time by the calendar function, and prompts the patient to input inquiry data regarding the physical condition and to perform the physical condition measurement using the measuring instrument. do. The patient inputs the inquiry result while operating the touch panel from the questions regarding appetite, body temperature, etc. displayed on the liquid crystal display and prepared answer items. After that, the respiratory rate, blood oxygen saturation, pulse rate, and electrocardiogram are continuously measured according to the instructions on the liquid crystal display screen. Finally, by inputting whether or not the measurement result should be urgently delivered to the doctor, one medical data measurement is completed.

On the other hand, the operating information from the oxygen concentrator may be constantly taken in by the communication device, and use time information for each set flow rate effective for confirming patient compliance may be generated. . Further, if the patient is inconvenient at the fixed time, the same medical data measurement as described above can be performed temporarily by the push button (21). Measurement of electrocardiogram, etc. using a measuring instrument, and conducting all items such as interviews several times a day will greatly increase the burden on the patient, so necessary items are required according to the patient's convenience. The program considers the measurement procedure to be performed at a high frequency.

The transmission device (10) has a function for the CPU (11) to determine whether or not there is an abnormality in the detection of physiological information of the patient. For example, the internal abnormality or the oxygen concentrator of the connected equipment ( 3), sensor (4), probe (5),
When an abnormality of the electrocardiograph (6) is recognized, an error number is assigned to each type of abnormality and transmitted to the computer (31).

As the type of abnormality, for example, the respiratory rate is not counted at all through the interface (14); the signal coming through the measuring section (15) does not follow the communication procedure;
Or even if it comes, abnormal measurement data is repeated more than the limited number of times because the finger is not inserted in the probe (5); An error occurs in sending and receiving, and this is repeated more than the limited number of times; year, month, day, hour, minute are ASCI
From the calendar function unit (19) generated by the I code, for example, 2-digit year data comes in other than the numeric code; and so on.

The program of the CPU (11) discriminates each of the above types, and, for example, three-digit error numbers 001, ..., 100, ..., 200 ... Defined respectively are transmitted to the computer (31). As a result, the type of abnormality is displayed / printed out for each patient's house in the information collection center (30), and the maintenance service can be promptly performed.

Further, when the communication device (10) is powered off or the modem (12) has an abnormality, there is a problem that transmission to the computer (31) cannot be performed. For this reason, the computer (31) can determine whether or not there is an incoming call for each patient's house, and can display and print out a list of unanswered calls for each patient if they have not arrived. Thereby, the abnormality can be quickly grasped.

Next, the report to the doctor will be described.

The urgent report corresponds to the case where the patient urgently wants to send the measurement result to the doctor. Upon receipt of the measurement result, the computer of the information collecting center records the measurement result in the storage device and then immediately converts the measurement result into an emergency report and transmits it to the doctor via the facsimile. At this time, the doctor can carry out more appropriate diagnosis and treatment by giving the measurement result for the last few days for several days and creating a report.

In the regular report, the measurement results from the patient are aggregated into a report for a certain period and sent to the doctor during the doctor's working hours (usually in the morning of the next morning). Although the duration is individually decided according to the patient's symptoms, it is usually a daily cycle, and a stable patient may have a 3 to 7 day cycle.

The monthly report is a report in which the measurement results from the patient are collected for one month, and a change graph for one month can be grasped, for example, a report including a trend graph of blood oxygen concentration. It is a calligraphy.

[0032]

As described above, according to the present invention,
Patients can perform in-home interviews and physical condition measurements using measuring instruments, which were previously possible only in hospitals. This reduces physical consumption due to going to the hospital and allows the doctor to know the measurement data in a normal state.

In particular, since it is possible to quickly determine the abnormality of each patient's house and the abnormality of each hospital, it can be said that this is a support system that does not impair the trust relationship between the patient and the doctor. In this way, this system allows patients to carry out home therapy more safely,
It can be said that this system is indispensable in today's society as the number of patients undergoing home-based therapy increases as the population ages.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an illustration of a preferred specific embodiment of the overall configuration of a home therapy support system of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a view showing an example of a preferred specific embodiment of a home communication device installed at home in the home therapy support system of the present invention.

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. An in-home communication device, which is arranged in each patient's home and has a transmitting means for transmitting medical information about physiological information of an in-home patient to an information collecting center, and the in-home communication device arranged in the information collecting center. A medical information collecting device equipped with receiving means for receiving the medical information transmitted from the communication device, and facsimile means for transmitting the medical information to the hospital, and the medical information collecting device disposed in the hospital. A home therapy support system comprising a receiving device equipped with a facsimile means for receiving information transmitted from a device, and a home telephone communication device, a public telephone line connecting the medical information collecting device and the receiving device, The at-home communication device has abnormality detecting means for determining whether or not there is a detection abnormality of physiological information, and communicates as information obtained by encoding the physiological information detection abnormality by type. A home therapy support system that is the one that was done. 2. An in-home communication device, which is arranged in each patient's home and has a transmitting means for transmitting medical information relating to physiological information of an in-home patient to an information collecting center, and the in-home communication device arranged in the information collecting center. A medical information collecting device equipped with receiving means for receiving the medical information transmitted from the communication device, and facsimile means for transmitting the medical information to the hospital, and the medical information collecting device disposed in the hospital. A home therapy support system comprising a receiving device equipped with a facsimile means for receiving information transmitted from a device, and a home telephone communication device, a public telephone line connecting the medical information collecting device and the receiving device, A home therapy support system in which the medical information collecting device includes communication error determining means for determining a facsimile transmission error to the receiving device for each hospital. Mu.