RU88441U1 - DEVICE FOR MEASURING AND RECORDING PATIENT TEMPERATURE - Google Patents

Abstract

1. A device for measuring and recording the temperature of patients, containing a set of working digital medical thermometers and a computer, characterized in that it contains a digital camera connected to a computer for reading the image from the indicator of a digital thermometer and transferring it to a computer and a tripod for installing and fixing workers thermometers in the field of view of this camera. ! 2. The device according to claim 1, characterized in that it contains a thermostat and a reference thermometer designed to measure the temperature of the thermostat with the ability to install and fix the working digital thermometers in a thermostatically controlled zone of the thermostat in order to periodically calibrate them.

Description

The technical field to which the utility model belongs.

The utility model relates to devices for measuring and recording the temperature of patients and can be used in medical, children's and educational institutions, when conducting sanitary-epidemiological measures, when it is necessary to quickly measure the temperature of a large number of subjects.

The prior art.

In accordance with current regulatory documents [1], medical thermometers, which can be digital, are used to measure and record temperature. The worker performing this procedure reads the thermometer visually and writes the result to the temperature sheet. The disadvantages are the low productivity of the examination process and the risk of a large error due to subjective errors of personnel, including reading errors and registration errors.

There are modern devices, for example, the INTERIN system [2], equipped with computers with the corresponding software in the form of a database. They also use medical thermometers to measure temperature, and the measurement result is also obtained by visual reading. Then this result is entered into the computer manually using the keyboard [3]. In this case, they get a bit more performance, but all the sources of error described above are preserved.

There are devices that provide automatic measurement and recording of temperature. These are monitoring devices, for example TERMOCHRON modification DS1921H-F5 [4]. They are connected for a sufficiently long period of time to individual patients with the help of special temperature sensors fixed on the patient, and record the curve of temperature change over time for this patient. In this case, a subjective source of errors is eliminated, but these devices are not effective for mass examinations when a quick change of patients is needed. For such an application, their performance does not exceed the performance of the previous ones.

The closest analogue to the proposed utility model is the INTERIN device, which performs the same function and includes a set of features that is closest to the set of features of the proposed utility model.

Performance is determined by the measurement time, the read time, and the time taken to record thermometer readings. The measurement time is determined by the dynamic characteristics of the measuring instrument - thermometer. But the performance limitation due to this factor is practically eliminated by parallelizing the measurement procedures by simultaneously measuring the temperature of a certain number of patients, which is realized by using a set of thermometers. In this case, the average measurement time per one patient can be obtained arbitrarily small.

There remains a limitation due to the fact that the reading of the thermometer and entering these readings into the database is carried out manually by personnel. The time taken to complete these operations determines the performance of the survey process.

In addition to the error due to subjective errors of personnel, the existing devices have an additional source of errors, which is a decrease in the accuracy of measurements associated with the drift of the readings of digital thermometers caused by their aging.

The objective of the proposed utility model is to increase the productivity and accuracy of the survey by eliminating these drawbacks.

Disclosure of a utility model.

The increase in productivity is ensured by the use of a digital camera, which allows automating the procedures for reading and recording readings. At the same time, accuracy is also improved by eliminating subjective errors of personnel.

An additional factor in increasing accuracy is the use of a thermostat with an exemplary thermometer, which makes it possible to control the measurement error and calibrate working thermometers.

The increase in productivity is achieved due to the fact that the time for measuring and recording temperature for one thermometer is reduced and the efficiency of parallel operations is increased, since it is possible to simultaneously measure temperature in a larger number of patients or subjects. Indeed, let the total measurement and recording time with one thermometer for an analog (Toa) be equal to:

Toa = Ti + TC + TP + TP

where Toa is the total time of measurement and registration with one thermometer for an analogue;

Ti is the patient’s temperature measurement time;

Tc is the time of visual reading of the thermometer;

Tp - the time of searching or entering the details of the patient in a document or database;

Tp is the time the thermometer reads into the document or database.

For the proposed utility model, the time for reading the thermometer and the time for entering the thermometer can be neglected due to their small size in comparison with the analogue. Indeed, if the time for performing automatic image acquisition, transferring it to a computer, recognition and entering readings into the database for the proposed model is of the order of units of milliseconds, then the execution time, for example, of the operation of visual reading of the thermometer for an analog, is of the order of several seconds . Therefore, the time of measurement and registration with one thermometer using the proposed utility model (To) can be considered equal to:

Tho = Ti + Tn

where T0 is the total measurement and recording time with one thermometer for the proposed model;

Ty, Tn are the same.

This time is reduced by the value of the time of visual reading and entering the thermometer manually, equal to Tc + Tr.

Parallel execution of temperature measurement operations by several thermometers is possible if the temperature measurement time is longer than the total time of the remaining operations. In this case, the criterion limiting performance is the condition that there is no service queue. In our case, the number of simultaneously served patients in the absence of a queue should not be more than:

Noa = Ti / (Tc + Tn + Tr)

No = Ti / TP

where Noa is the number of patients served simultaneously for an analogue;

No - the number of patients served simultaneously for the proposed utility model.

The increase in productivity is determined by the value: K = No / Noa = l + (Tc + Tr) / Tn

where K is the coefficient of productivity increase.

As follows from the obtained expression, this coefficient is greater than unity, which means an increase in productivity.

Various destabilizing factors, such as changes in external conditions, changes in supply voltages, drift of parameters and aging of elements reduce the accuracy of measuring digital thermometers. This disadvantage is eliminated by the fact that a thermostat equipped with an exemplary thermometer is used in the device. One of the working thermometers can be installed in the thermostat so that its sensitive element is at the same temperature as the sensitive element of the reference thermometer. To calibrate the working thermometer, measure the temperature in the thermostat with this thermometer. After that, according to the standard procedure for applying the proposed utility model, the readings of this working thermometer are automatically read, but in this case, instead of the patient’s details, the calibration record for this working thermometer is selected and the indications of the reference thermometer are entered into it. In this procedure, the program determines the difference between the readings of the working and reference thermometers, as the correction for this working thermometer, which will be taken into account when recording measurements made by this thermometer. At the modern metrological level of medical digital thermometers of widespread use, such a calibration for a thermometer is enough to carry out 1-2 times a month.

Such an automatic calibration system also provides quality control of working thermometers according to the magnitude of the correction. Exceeding this amendment of a certain, predetermined threshold, serves as a criterion for the unsuitability of this thermometer for further operation. This ensures the preservation of measurement accuracy during operation.

A brief description of the drawings.

The figure shows a functional diagram of the proposed device.

Implementation of a utility model.

The proposed utility model contains a set of working digital medical thermometers 1-5, a computer 6, a digital camera 7, a thermostat 8, an exemplary thermometer 9, and a tripod 10 for installing working thermometers and feeding them into the field of view of a digital camera.

The digital camera 7 is connected to the computer 6 and is located so that one of the working thermometers can be installed in its field of view, for example 5. To alternately feed the working thermometers into the camera’s field of view, they are mounted in a special tripod 10, which ensures their movement in the camera’s field of view, for example, using a stepper motor. An exemplary thermometer 9 is installed in the thermostat 8, and one of the working thermometers, for example, number 4, can be simultaneously installed in it.

The device operates as follows. Thermometers from a set of working thermometers 1-3 measure the temperature of several patients. The thermometer 5, for which the temperature measurement procedure has already been completed, is installed in a tripod 10, which feeds it into the field of view of the digital camera 7, and is entered into the database of the computer 6, or the record related to this patient is selected in the database, after which the image of the digital indicator the thermometer is centered, filtered, the video signal is normalized, which is automatically input to computer 6, the signal is recognized, for example, by determining the position of the vector for the presented digit in the seven-dimensional coordinate space Marks segments of this figure, and the measurement result is stored in the selected database record. The thermometer is passed to the next patient.

For automatic identification of working thermometers, a signature is used that takes into account the difference of the same statistical and spectral characteristics of the video signal from the image of the digits of this thermometer.

To calibrate a specific working thermometer, for example, thermometer 4, it is installed in a thermostat, and after completing the temperature measurement of the thermostat with this thermometer, it is transferred to the field of view of the digital camera 7. Further, in accordance with the described procedure, the readings of this thermometer are automatically read and recognized. At the same time, the calibration record for this working thermometer is selected in the database and the reading of the reference thermometer is entered into it, by which the correction for this working thermometer is automatically calculated, which is taken into account during the following measurements made by this thermometer.

The example embodiment of the invention justifies the possibility of practical implementation of the proposed technical solution that provides the claimed functionality and the achievement of the claimed technical result.

References to the literature.

1. Reference paramedic / ed. Eliseeva Yu.Yu. - M .: Eksmo, 2007, - 1020 s.

2. Guidelines for working with the INTERIN system. http://brain.interin.ru/Interin/GuideHTML_/Start htm

3. Desktop structure of the guard nurse http://brain.interin.ru/Interin/GuideHTML_/Table_sister.htm

4. Temperature monitoring, www.elin.ru/Thermochron/.

Claims (2)

1. A device for measuring and recording the temperature of patients, containing a set of working digital medical thermometers and a computer, characterized in that it contains a digital camera connected to a computer for reading the image from the indicator of a digital thermometer and transferring it to a computer and a tripod for installing and fixing workers thermometers in the field of view of this camera. 2. The device according to claim 1, characterized in that it contains a thermostat and a reference thermometer designed to measure the temperature of the thermostat with the ability to install and fix the working digital thermometers in a thermostatically controlled zone of the thermostat in order to periodically calibrate them.