DEPARTMENT IN MOBILE EQUIPMENT

FIELD

[0001] The following relates generally to portable imaging systems, such as portable ultrasound or x-ray devices, and to configuring same for specific imaging tasks, and will be described with particular reference thereto. However, it is to be appreciated that the present disclosure is also amenable to other like applications.

BACKGROUND

[0002] Portable medical imaging equipment within a hospital may be used for a variety of imaging tasks. These tasks often differ in relation to the department using the portable medical equipment. For example, an ultrasound may be used for fetal monitoring in a maternity ward, for echocardiography in a cardiac ward, for determination of internal bleeding in an emergency department, for diagnostic imaging of organs in a general ward and visualization of needle placement in an operating room. Often each task requires a unique configuration of the portable equipment to obtain optimal results.

[0003] This can make sharing of equipment between departments difficult as the machine must be reconfigured for each different task. Typically a user of the equipment, usually a physician, nurse, technician, or other medical professional, manually sets a particular configuration associated with a procedure to be performed. In an imaging device with a broad range of capabilities, imaging modes, and so forth, this entails drilling down through a multi-level menu system to select the imaging mode, the imaged anatomy, ultrasound probe selection, and so forth, as well as configuration parameters for the given clinical task, e.g. ultrasound depth, frequency, focusing parameters or so forth in the case of ultrasound imaging. When equipment is shared between departments, the likelihood of largescale configuration changes is great. This consumes a lot of time in preparing the medical equipment when moving it from one location to another. Further, if the equipment is moved from one department to another and is not reconfigured properly for the tasks performed for the new department, the resulting misconfiguration can result in sub-optimal equipment performance.

[0004] In spite of these difficulties, it is generally advantageous for an ultrasound or other imaging system to provide the user with a wide range of capabilities, as this can be more cost- effective than providing a number of different, more specialized ultrasound devices, and also provides more flexibility in deployment of imaging devices around the hospital.

[0005] The following discloses certain improvements.

SUMMARY

[0006] In some embodiments disclosed herein, a portable medical device comprises, a data acquisition interface configured to communicate with a data acquisition device to acquire patient data, a display, at least one user input device, and a device controller. The device controller includes an electronic processor and is operative to determine a current location of the portable medical device using a locating system, retrieve a menu organization associated with the current location from a menu organizations storage storing a plurality of menu organizations associated with a plurality of locations, receive an operational configuration for the data acquisition device via the at least one user input device navigating a menu system displayed on the display and organized in the retrieved multi-level menu organization, and control a data acquisition device to acquire patient data using the operational configuration received via the menu system.

[0007] In some embodiments disclosed herein, a method for configuring a portable medical device is disclosed. The method comprises using a locating system to determine a current location of the portable medical device, ordering menu items of a device configuration menu based upon the location, receiving an operational configuration for the portable medical device via the device configuration menu ordered based upon the location, and operating the portable medical device to acquire patient data using the operational configuration received via the menu system.

[0008] In some embodiments disclosed herein, a non-transitory storage medium stores instructions readable and executable by a device controller to perform data acquisition. The device controller operates by associating a portable medical device with a medical facility location, retrieving a menu organization associated with a current medical facility location of a portable medical device from the storage medium storing a plurality of menu organizations, receiving an operational configuration for a data acquisition device via at least one user input device, and controlling the data acquisition device to acquire patient data using the operational configuration received via the menu system.

[0009] In another disclosed aspect, the device controller of the portable medical device is further operative to, store statistics of accessed menu items as a function of location determined using the location system, construct menu organizations for locations based on location-specific probabilities that menu items are accessed derived from the stored statistics, and store the constructed multi-level menu organizations in the menu organizations storage.

[0010] One advantage resides in facilitating flexible deployment of portable imaging devices across departments or other medical units of a hospital or other medical facility that employ different configurations.

[0011] Another advantage resides in providing a more efficient user interface for configuring or setting up a medical device for a particular task.

[0012] Another advantage resides in automatically providing a medical device with a menu organization appropriate for the medical department within which the medical device is currently being employed.

[0013] Another advantage resides in providing an automatically updated menu organization for a medical device that operates as a guide to assist the user in configuring the medical device for tasks typically performed in a given medical department.

[0014] Another advantage resides in providing a medical device with one or more of the foregoing advantages while providing the user with flexibility to set up the medical device for the medical task desired by the user.

[0015] A given embodiment may provide none, one, two, more, or all of the foregoing advantages, and/or may provide other advantages as will become apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art upon reading and understanding the present disclosure.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0016] The invention may take form in various components and arrangements of components, and in various steps and arrangements of steps. The drawings are only for purposes of illustrating the preferred embodiments and are not to be construed as limiting the invention.

[0017] FIGURE 1 diagrammatically illustrates a portable imaging device and portable monitoring device deployed in a medical facility and further illustrating associated structures.

[0018] FIGURE 2 diagrammatically illustrates a method of providing a menu organization associated with a location.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0019] The following discloses medical equipment that provides a menu system having a configuration, i.e. menu organization, that is determined based on the location of the medical device. This includes a prioritized menu of configuration options based upon the physical location of the medical equipment.

[0020] Medical devices, such as portable imaging systems and physiological monitors are relatively complex, and can literally have thousands of combinations of possible operational configurations, e.g., set-ups and processing programs. Typically, configuration of these devices is a manual process performed by the user, i.e. a medical professional, selecting menu options of a menu system to specifically set-up the diagnostic procedure based on the current needs of a patient. As the portable device is moved throughout different locations of the medical facility, the optimal configurations and settings change based on department and patient needs, thus requiring the user to update the device via the menu system, which can be tedious and confusing for the user.

[0021] One way to eliminate such re-configuration might be to provide some mechanism for automatically configuring the medical device for a particular task. However, it is recognized herein that this approach has certain disadvantages. It can be difficult to accurately automatically predict the task for which a medical professional is about to use the medical device. If this task prediction is in error, then the device is misconfigured for the wrong task. This may be remediated by permitting manual re-configuration of the medical device for the correct task in the event of an erroneous prediction. However, in doing so there is a substantial likelihood the medical professional may fail to recognize and correct one or more settings that were automatically configured. Moreover, this manual re-configuration can be tedious - for example, if an ultrasound device automatically predicts it is to be used for fetal monitoring and configures itself accordingly; but is actually to be used for an echocardiography task, then many settings will need to be manually reconfigured to set up the ultrasound device to perform an echocardiograph. Furthermore, many of the menu options that need to be accessed to perform this re-configuration may be buried deep within the (typically complex hierarchical) menu organization of the menu system of the ultrasound device. This makes reconfiguration tedious as the medical professional must“drill down” through menu levels to access various menu options.

[0022] In some disclosed embodiments, rather than automatically configuring the medical device for a predicted task, the menu organization is automatically configured. It is recognized herein that this overcomes some of the aforementioned disadvantages of automatic device configuration. The automatic configuration of the menu organization reduces the tediousness of configuring the medical device for a task by placing most commonly used menu options at the top level(s) of the menu organization, and optionally by reconfiguring the routing through the menu hierarchy to access most commonly used menu items for the task. The optimized menu organization also serves as an effective guide to the user in setting up for a particular task, since the menu options most likely to be accessed are placed on the top level(s) where they will likely be encountered by the user. Furthermore, if the automatic task prediction is incorrect, the adverse impact is only a non-optimized menu organization, rather than a misconfigured medical device. In some illustrative embodiments, a portable medical device presents a menu organization with a prioritized presentment of menu options. Here, portable relates to the device’s ease of mobility from location to location. In some embodiments, a portable device includes wheels that facilitate moving the portable device from location to location. In other embodiments, a portable device is one that is easily carried or placed on a cart to facilitate moving the portable device from location to location, and/or includes wired or wireless plug-n-play type communications interfacing to enable the portable medical device to be easily moved between locations or medical departments and connected for operation. By way of non-limiting illustration, some illustrative portable medical devices include: portable ultrasound devices mounted on wheeled carts or the like; medical monitors designed to be installed in a patient hospital room and which may be reassigned and moved to different hospital rooms as needed to accommodate variable patient loads; portable x-ray devices such as digital radiography (DR) equipment designed to be moved to a hospital room to image the patient in his or her room rather than requiring the patient to be transported to a radiology lab; and so forth.

[0023] FIGURE 1 illustrates a portable imaging device 10 and a portable monitoring device 20. By way of non-limiting illustrative example, the illustrative mobile imaging device is a mobile ultrasound system like the Philips Affmiti 70™ (available from Koninklijke Philips N.V., Eindhoven, the Netherlands), but more generally the disclosed improvements can be incorporated into any portable ultrasound or imaging system. In some embodiments, the portable imaging device is a portable x-ray imaging device. With continued reference to FIGURE 1, the portable imaging device 10 includes a device controller 12 including an electronic processor and a non- transitory storage medium 14 storing instructions readable and executable by the device controller 12 to perform imaging processes. (Note, components 12 and 14 are typically internal to the portable imaging device 10 and are indicated diagrammatically in FIGURE 1). The illustrative portable imaging device 10 also includes a display 16 for displaying patient data, images, and/or a graphical user interface. A user may input commands or interact with a graphical user interface by means of a user input device 18 such as a keyboard. Additionally or alternatively, the display 16 may be a touch-sensitive display providing for user input, and/or other user input devices may be provided such as a mouse, trackball, soft keys or so forth. In some embodiments, the input device 18 is a remote input device such as a wireless keyboard and/or smart phone in wireless communication with the device controller 12.

[0024] The portable imaging device also includes a data acquisition interface 19 configured to receive a variety of data acquisition devices to acquire patient data. The patient data may be displayed on display 16. In illustrative non-limiting examples, the data acquisition devices may be imaging probes or transducers configured to acquire image data associated with a patient. In the case of an ultrasound device, the probe/transducer may acquire image data of a fetus. In some embodiments, the data acquisition devices may be wired into the data acquisition interface 19. In other embodiments, the data acquisition interface 19 is able to wirelessly connect to and communicate with a wireless the data acquisition device to acquire patient data. As one example, a portable digital radiography (DR) device may employ a wireless detector plate that detects the DR image, and the data acquisition interface 19 in such a DR device may be a WiFi or other wireless interface that receives the DR image from the wireless detector plate. It should also be noted that the data acquisition interface 19 could be an internal interface communicating with a data acquisition component which is also part of the portable imaging device. For example, the portable imaging device could be a mobile C-arm imaging device with an integral flat detector connected via a data acquisition interface comprising a wired connection of the flat detector with image acquisition electronics of the portable imaging device.

[0025] With continued reference to FIGURE 1, a portable monitoring device 20 includes a device controller 22 including an electronic processor and a non-transitory storage medium 24 storing instructions readable and executable by the device controller 22 to perform monitoring processes. (Note, components 22 and 24 are typically internal to the portable monitoring device 20 and are indicated diagrammatically in FIGURE 1). In illustrative non-limiting examples, the portable monitoring device is a portable vital signs monitoring device, a continuous patient monitor, or so forth. The illustrative portable monitoring device 20 also includes a display 26 for displaying images associated with the monitoring activity, acquired patient data, and/or a graphical user interface. A user input device 28 for user input such as keys/knobs/buttons may be disposed on the portable monitoring device 20. Additionally or alternatively, the display 26 may be a touch- sensitive display providing for user input, and/or other user input devices may be provided such as a mouse, trackball, soft keys or so forth. In some embodiments, the input device 28 is a remote input device such as a wireless keyboard or smart phone in wireless communication with the device controller 22.

[0026] The portable monitoring device also includes a data acquisition interface 29 configured to receive a variety of data acquisition devices to acquire patient data. The patient data may be displayed on display 26. In some embodiments, the data acquisition devices may be various vital sign sensors such as ECG electrodes or a plug-in ECG card, a respiratory sensor, Sp0 ₂ sensor, and/or so forth, plugged into or wired into the data acquisition interface 29. In other embodiments, the data acquisition interface 29 is a wireless interface such as a WiFi, Bluetooth™ or Zigbee™ interface operative to wirelessly connect to the data acquisition device to acquire patient data. Typically, the portable monitoring device 20 is programmed to plot acquired vital sign data as trend lines, output a visual and/or audible alarms when a vital sign goes above/below upper/lower alarm thresholds, send acquired vital sign data to a nurses’ station, Electronic Medical Record (EMR), or so forth.

[0027] The portable imaging device 10 and portable monitoring device 20 may be equipped with respective locator tags 38. The locator tags 38 are part of a locating system 30 to generate location data associated with a portable device. The locator tag 38 may be internal to the portable device equipment or may be attached to the body of the portable imaging or portable monitoring devices (10, 20), or may be disposed with the portable device by way of being attached to a cart or the like which carries the portable device. The locator tags 38 may be in electronic communication with and share a power source with the associated portable device. Alternatively, the locator tag 38 may be powered separately from the associated portable device, such as by a battery, and/or the locator tag 38 may be a passive tag that does not contain a battery. In an illustrative non-limiting example, the locator tag 38 may be an RFID-tag. For a passive RFID tag, radio waves from an RFID reader (not pictured) of the locating system 30 enable the RFID-tag 38 to generate power for the RFID tag to send information encoded in the RFID-tag’ s memory to a tag reader. The locator system 30 may send acquired location data to the portable device controller 12, 22 for a determination of the portable device’s current location. [0028] The locating system 30 may be a Real Time Locating Service (RTLS). By way of non-limiting illustration, some examples of RTLS technologies include RFID-based RTLS employing RFID tags disposed on or in tracked equipment; GPS-based tracking using GPS receivers incorporated into medical devices; WiFi based positioning (WPS) leveraging signal strength of WiFi access point (AP) connections with WiFi-enabled mobile devices; various combinations thereof; or so forth. In another approach, the locating system 30 comprises an electronic (i.e. online) equipment log that stores the current assignments of medical devices to medical departments. Thus, for example, if a portable ultrasound device is assigned to the maternity ward according to the online equipment log, then the locating system reads this information and returns the location as the maternity ward. In this case, the“current location” is the medical department to which the medical device is assigned. In such an embodiment, the RTLS and RFID tags 38 may be omitted.

[0029] In some embodiments, using Internet and/or other computer systems(s), the current location of the portable device can be established by associating a geographic location with an Internet Protocol (IP) address, media access control (MAC) address, RFID, hardware embedded article/production number, embedded software numbers, Wi-Fi connection location, device GPS coordinates. The current location can be facilitated by automatically looking up an IP address on a WHOIS service and retrieving the registrant’s physical address.

[0030] As diagrammatically illustrated in FIGURE 1, the locating system 30 is implemented on a suitable electronic processing device such as a server computer 36 which reads and executes instructions, implementing the locating system 30 to determine the current location of the portable medical device which are stored on a non-transitory storage medium 34. The server computer 36 may be a single server computer, a plurality of server computers, an ad hoc collection of network-based computers defining a cloud computing resource, and/or so forth.

[0031] In variant embodiments, the current location may be received from a user via a user input device, for example by the user selecting a location from a predetermined list of locations via a user input device 18, 28.

[0032] The portable medical device 10, 20 is configured to load a menu organization from a plurality of menu organizations. The plurality of menu organizations are stored in a menu organization storage. The menu organization storage may be incorporated into the portable device such as stored on illustrative storage medium 14 and 24, or the plurality of menu organizations may be stored remotely from the device, such as stored on illustrative storage medium 34 associated with the server 36 as illustrated in FIGURE 1. The portable imaging device 10 and portable monitoring device 20 optionally further include a wireless communication interface 15, 25, respectively for receiving menu organizations and operational configurations from the server 36. The wireless communication interface may also communicate with other wireless devices associated with the portable device. This includes a wireless remote control device such as a smart phone employed by a medical professional. Each menu organization in the plurality of menu organizations contains a plurality of operational configurations for a data acquisition device. These operational configurations include but are not limited to device settings and/or applications and processes.

[0033] In general, the menu system includes a set of menu options that are selected by a user via the menu system and operation of a user input device. The menu organization may be a multi-level menu organization. A multi-level menu organization is advantageous as it allows the user to access menu options without reading through a long list of menu options. A multi-level menu can also provide sensible associations between related menu options. For example, a top- level menu option in the case of the ultrasound imaging device 10 may specify“fetal monitoring”, and upon selection of this menu option a second-level menu is brought up which lists menu options that pertain to setup of a fetal monitoring task, such as menu options selecting or de-selecting fetal parameters to monitor (heart rate, movements, et cetera), menu options for specifying parameters such as maximum sonication energy or power, sonication frequency, and/or so forth. Likewise, a top-level menu option may select echocardiology, and upon selection this brings up a second-level menu with options for this task. More than two levels may be employed. In general, a multi-level menu organization includes a top-level menu and at least one sub-menu. The sub-menus are accessible by navigating and selecting an option provided in the top-level menu via use of a user input device 18, 28. As another illustrative non-limiting example, a top-level menu organization may include a list of menu options including organ systems to be imaged, (i.e. circulatory system, digestive system, etc.). Menus could be organized by the clinical question to be answered, such as “Is there internal bleeding?” instead of by organ system. Once a top level menu option is selected, a sub-menu provides sub-menu options related to the selected top-level option. Continuing with the non-limiting illustrative example, if“digestive system” is chosen in the top-level menu, a sub menu may present specific organs of the selected system (i.e. stomach, intestine, liver, etc.). A user may then navigate and select a sub-menu option. At his point the menu may either continue to another sub-level menu for navigation by a user or may select an operational configuration for the portable device. Again, continuing with the non-limiting illustrative example, selecting“liver” in the sub-menu level may configure the device settings of a portable imaging device to optimally operate an associated data acquisition device to image a liver in a patient. Selecting a top level “emergency” menu may bring the operator to a sub-menu for a FAST exam which stands for Focused Assessment with Sonography in Trauma. The imaging would be optimized to find free fluid around the heart, liver and other organs.

[0034] In a patient monitor, a high level menu could be based on age with choices such as adult, pediatric and neonatal. Categories of alarms would be the next level sub-menu. Each alarm category, such as heart rate or atrial arrhythmia or ventricular arrhythmia, would have a set of alarm thresholds. The default alarm thresholds change based on that top level age configuration. A ward based top level menu may have sub-menus for emergency department, chest pain center and ICU for instance. An ECG electrode placement setting could be (1) standard, wrists and ankles, or (2) torso. Torso electrode placement is common throughout the hospital but standard placement would be used much more frequently in a chest pain center where 12-lead ECG monitoring for ST-segment elevation and depression would be common.

[0035] A non-limiting illustrative of one such device setting is the frequency that a portable ultrasound device may employ for imaging an object associated with a patient. Operational frequencies often depend on the object to be imaged as well as the depth of the object in the patient. The operational frequency employed by the ultrasound to image a patient’s heart is different from the operational frequency to image a fetus inside a patient. As such, a menu organization would include an operational configuration for imaging a heart and an operational configuration for imaging a fetus. It is to be appreciated that an ultrasound device includes a vast number of abilities and objects to which the device can image and would include an operational configuration for each and every ability and object.

[0036] It is noted that different medical departments are more likely to utilize certain abilities of the portable device or image certain objects over others, e.g. a cardiology department is more likely to image a heart or measure blood flow in vasculature, while a maternity department is more likely to image a fetus or perform various types of fetal monitoring (heart rate, fetal movements, and/or et cetera). Thus, a given medical department is more likely to use some operational configurations more than others. Usually, the menu system employs a single menu organization. However, it is recognized herein that this will not provide optimal operability across medical departments. Rather, if (by way of illustration) the ultrasound device 10 is deployed in a cardiology department then it can be advantageous to order the top-level menu to place cardiology- related tasks at top, such as cardiac imaging and blood flow measurement tasks, and to place other tasks such as imaging of other organs or various fetal monitoring tasks lower down in the top-level menu. Lower-level menus may similarly be optimized for different medical departments - for example, a pediatric cardiology department may have different optimization versus a general cardiology department. Each menu organization in the plurality of menu organizations is associated with a medical department, a geographic location, or some otherwise-defined location. As an illustrative example, a menu organization may be associated with a room or medical department of a medical facility. In some embodiments, geographical location serves as a surrogate for medical department, e.g. an RTLS can provide a geographical location of the medical device which is input to an electronic map of the medical facility to determine in which medical department the medical device is currently deployed.

[0037] However, in furthering the non-limiting illustrative example, there is a possibly that a maternity department may still wish to image the mother’s heart. This is still possible, though the menu options for setting up a cardiac imaging task using the menu organization for the maternity ward may be less than optimal since this is an unusual task for the maternity department. For example, the top-level menu option for cardiac imaging may be ordered lower in the list of menu options making up the top-level menu, thus requiring the user to scroll down to the cardiac imaging menu option to select it. While not assigned a high priority on the menu organization associated with the current location (maternity department), the user of the device in the maternity department may still select an operational configuration for imaging a heart, albeit by digging deeper into and navigating the menu organization.

[0038] The different menu organizations for different medical departments can differ in various ways. For example, the ordering of menu options in the top-level menu and the various sub-menus may be different. Moreover, some menu options that are accessible from the top-level menu in the menu organization for one medical department may be accessed via a sub-menu in the menu organization for another medical department. As an illustration, the top-level menu for the menu organization associated with the maternity ward may include the menu options“Fetal heart monitoring”,“fetal movements monitoring”,“Fetal heart and movement monitoring”, and “More” with other types of tasks such as cardiac imaging, blood flow monitoring, and so forth accessed via a second-level menu brought up by selecting the“More” top-level menu option. By contrast, the top-level menu for the menu organization associated with the cardiology ward may include the menu options“Cardiac imaging”,“Blood flow monitoring”, and other cardiology tasks, and a final“More” menu option which brings up non-cardiology tasks such as fetal monitoring tasks.

[0039] Typically, the different menu organizations for different medical departments all provide for full functionality of the medical device, albeit with differing effort to reach particular menu options. However, it is alternatively contemplated to have certain functionality restricted under certain menu organizations. For example, in the interest of fetal safety, it is contemplated to limit the maximum sonication energy and/or power that can be entered in the case of a menu organization for a maternity ward or other ward focused on fetal care. In a variant approach, the user may be asked to confirm entry of a large sonication energy or power value in such menu organizations before the entry is accepted. Other contemplated differences between menu organizations may include using different units for input values in accord with differing conventional practice in various medical departments, employing different default values for different inputs, and so forth.

[0040] In some embodiments, the various menu organizations for the various medical departments are crafted manually, for example with the menu organization for each medical department constructed by an experienced medical professional in that department based on knowledge of the most common uses of the medical device in that department. To this end, the device controller of the medical device may be further programmed to provide a menu configuration user interface via which a user enters menu organizations and associates entered menu organizations with respective locations (e.g. medical departments). Alternatively, this setup may be performed by the vendor of the medical instrument based on common practices of and tasks performed by various standard medical departments (e.g. maternity, cardiology, etc.).

[0041] In some embodiments, the device controller is programmed to construct or update menu organizations for locations (e.g. medical departments) based on location-specific probabilities that menus items (operational configurations) are accessed by users of the portable device in the location. In an illustrative approach, the device controller stores statistics of accessed menu items as a function of location determined using the location system. As a non-limiting illustrative example, a location such as a cardiology department may use an operational configuration for imaging a heart more than an operational configuration for imaging a liver. Thus, the frequency of selection of menu options involved in setting up for imaging a heart is statistically greater than the frequency of selection of menu options involved in setting up for imaging a liver. A learning algorithm is employed to track the usage of the various menu options and associated statistics. Those menu options that are frequently used in a specific location have a higher probability of use and are prioritized in the menu organization over those operational configurations that are rarely (having low probability) used in the same location. This prioritization may entail putting the most frequently selected menu options in the top-level menu, or higher up in the list of menu options making up a given menu level, and relegating less-frequently selected menu items to deeper levels of the hierarchical menu organization and/or placing them lower on the list of menu options making up a given menu level. Default values for menu options in which numerical values are entered can be set, for example, based on the average or mean value entered (preferably rounded to a whole number or to the nearest one, two, three, etc. significant digits or otherwise formulated, e.g. if the average input heart rate alarm setting is 112.4 beats-per-minute this may be rounded to 110 bpm to make the default value a round number). It should be noted this learning approach can optionally be combined with initial menu organizations set up by a medical professional via a menu configuration user interface, so as to dynamically adjust the initial manually entered menu organization to track with actual usage of various menu options and to track the default values for various numerical input values with the“most typical” entered values. The constructed menu organizations associated with a location are stored in a menu organization storage for retrieval by the device controller when the portable device is used in that location. In the non-limiting illustrative example for a portable imaging device 10 and portable monitoring device 20, communication interfaces 15 and 25, respectively, are configured to wirelessly transmit statistical data and/or constructed menu organizations for storage on remote storage 34.

[0042] With continued reference to FIGURE 1, the menu organization storage is accessible by the device controller 12, 22 configured to retrieve a menu organization based on the portable device’s current location. That is, the device controller 12, 22 selects the menu organization from the plurality of menu organizations that is associated with the location. Upon selection of the menu organization, a plurality of menu items making up the top-level menu of the selected menu organization are presented on the portable device’s display. In some non-limiting illustrative examples, the plurality of menu items are displayed on an associated remote user input device, such as a smart phone. In some embodiments, the plurality of menu items is a plurality of operational configurations. A user of the portable medical device is able to, via a user input device, navigate the menu organization and drill through menu levels to select any menu item in the menu organization. The device controller 12, 22 is configured to receive the selected operational configuration for a data acquisition device of the portable device and control the data acquisition device to acquire patent data. This“operational configuration” is defined by the device settings input by the user via the menu system organized according to the selected menu organization. The medical device is then operated in accord with this operational configuration to collect patient data (e.g. images, vital sign data, or so forth). In some medical devices, the user may be able to modify aspects of the operational configuration while the medical device is collecting patient data, e.g. to adjust vital sign alarm settings or so forth.

[0043] FIGURE 2 is a flow diagram representative of an illustrative process suitably performed by execution of machine readable instructions stored on the storage medium by the device processor as shown in FIGURE 1. The illustrative process of FIGURE 2 can be performed using a processor, a device controller and/or other suitable processing devices. For example, the illustrative process of FIGURE 2 can be implemented using coded instructions (e.g. computer readable instructions) stored on a non-transitory computer readable medium such as flash memory, a read-only memory (ROM), a random access memory (RAM), a cache, or another other storage media in which information is stored for any duration (e.g. for extended time periods, permanently, brief instances, for temporarily buffing, and/or for caching of the information).

[0044] FIGURE 2 illustrates a flow diagram for a method 50 for locating a portable device

(10 and 20 of FIGURE 1) and configuring a menu organization based upon the current location of the portable device. At block 52, a current location of a portable medical device is determined. For example, the portable medical device may be transferred from the cardiology department of a hospital to the maternity department of a hospital. The current geographical location of the portable medical device, equipped with an associated locator tag 38 can be identified, such as via the example location system 30 of FIGURE 1. Optionally, this geographical location may be converted to a medical department or other more“semantically meaningful” location using an electronic map of the medical facility. In other embodiments, the block 52 determines the current location as a medical department directly, e.g. by reading the medical department to which the medical device is currently assigned from an electronic equipment log. At block 54, a location specific menu organization is retrieved from a plurality of menu organizations based on information associated with the determined current location of the device. The plurality of menu organizations are stored in a menu organization storage. The menu organization storage is incorporated into the portable device such as illustrative storage 14 and 24, or in another embodiment the plurality of menu organizations are stored remotely from the device, such as illustrative storage medium 34 associated with the server 36 of FIGURE 1.

[0045] The location specific menu organization, as described above, orders the menu options, sets default numerical input values, or otherwise organizes the menu system in a manner associated with (and preferably optimized or designed for) the current location. As an illustrative example, when the portable device is located in a maternity department the menu organization associated with the maternity department of the hospital will be selected.

[0046] At block 56, an operational configuration is received from the user by way of selection of menu options and, in the case of certain menu options, entering a numerical input or otherwise providing input data for setting up the operational configuration of the medical device. At block 58, the device controller controls a data acquisition device associated with the portable medical unit to acquire patient data using the operational configuration received via the menu system.

[0047] The one or more processors of device controllers 12, 22 and server 36 may be variously embodied, e.g. as the illustrative device processor 12, 22 which together with the non- transitory storage medium 14, 24 for storing the plurality of menu organizations and operational configurations, and data acquisition interface 19, 29 are assembled as the portable medical device 10, 20 as a portable medical unit and/or as the illustrative remote electronic processor 36 and remote non-transitory storage medium 34 that are separate from the portable medical unit. The electronic processors of 12, 22, and 36 may comprise a microprocessor, graphical processing unit (GPU), and/or the like and ancillary electronics (discrete electronic components, RAM or other IC components, etcetera). The non-transitory storage medium 14, 24, 34, may comprise a hard disk drive, RAID array or other magnetic storage medium; a solid state drive (SSD), flash memory or other electronic storage medium; an optical disk or other optical storage medium; various combinations thereof, and/or so forth. [0048] In other embodiments, the data acquisition device, the device controller 12, 22 and the wireless communication interface 15, 25 are assembled as a portable unit. In these embodiments, a menu organizations storage comprises a server-based storage 34 not part of the portable unit and accessed by the device controller 12, 22 via the wireless communication interface 15, 25 of the portable unit.

[0049] The use of the disclosed location-based menu organizations does not preclude selecting the menu organization from a plurality of menu organization using additional selection criteria. For example, a menu organization may be selected from storage based upon the determined location of the device and a determined data acquisition device currently employed by the portable medical unit (for example, the particular ultrasound probe attached to the ultrasound imaging device 10). Since the portable medical device may be configured to use a wide variety of data acquisition devices and each data acquisition device is optimally designed for a specific procedure, it is advantageous for a menu system to load a menu configuring based on both the location and associated data acquisition device. In an illustrative non-limiting example, a portable device located in the cardiac department equipped with a fetal imaging device may show a priority for an operational configuration related to imaging a fetal heart.

[0050] Additional advantages include the ability of the portable device to present a warning message, such as a graphical pop up window on the display, that the current associated data acquisition device is one that is not normally used in the department and may need to be changed. In an illustrative non-limiting example, a portable device may be transferred from the maternity department to the cardiac department but the data acquisition device related to fetal imaging may still be connected to or associated with the portable device. After determining the location of the portable device, the device controller recognizes that the current data acquisition device does match to the top operational configurations of the menu organization associated with the location. At this point, a warning appears on the display indicating that the data acquisition device may need to be changed.

[0051] The invention has been described with reference to the preferred embodiments.

Modifications and alterations may occur to others upon reading and understanding the preceding detailed description. It is intended that the exemplary embodiment be construed as including all such modifications and alterations insofar as they come within the scope of the appended claims or the equivalents thereof.