Benefits of medical data display systems include rapid presentations and storage of data of monitored health conditions for a patient. At least some of this information may be generated by electronic sensors configured to detect at least one medical condition of a patient and produce an electronic signal based on that medical condition. The electronic signal may be collected over time in at least one standard metric used in the care of the patient may be determined for analysis by a medical care provider. Examples of a standard metric may include heart rates and electrocardiogram data. Data for the standard metric can be collected over extended timeframes, for example, in some cases twenty-four hours or more to monitor the health of the patient and to identify abnormalities which may occur with frequencies that may vary on a patient-to-patient basis. The abnormalities may be observable as changes in the standard metric occurring at occurrences that are predictable or still being understood. The abnormalities may be used by the medical care provider to provide long term care to the patient, predict future medical events, or to diagnose medical conditions of the patient.
As the amount of medical data in the form of electrical signals from the patient becomes more readily available and the time demands on the medical caregiver continue to increase, there is a need to more efficiently provide assistance to the care provider to provide convenient access to the at least one standard metric. In some cases, the at least one standard metric may conventionally be generated as an electrocardiogram hardcopy data printout and the caregiver must meticulously review the long hardcopy strip which may include twenty-four hours or more of data to determine abnormalities in a time consuming process. Further, in some cases the care provider often correlates that at least one standard metric to other data, for example, a second standard metric in the form of heat rates to monitor the health of the patient. Correlating multiple metrics can also be a time consuming endeavor and prone to errors as the large quantities of data are often difficult to analyze and compare particularly under the stressful environment of a care provider facility where medical care decisions may necessarily need to be made very quickly to ensure that the patient receives accurate and timely care. New approaches are needed to enable care providers to more easily recognize and understand the occurrence and identities of health events experienced by patients, so that care providers may be better informed to provide more effective treatments.
To facilitate understanding, identical reference numerals have been used, where possible, to designate identical elements that are common to the figures. It is contemplated that elements disclosed in one embodiment may be beneficially utilized on other embodiments without specific recitation.