Incubator Monitoring, Video Recording and Parent Internet Access

Babywatch is a Digital Video Recording and IP Transmission based system in combination with Akkadia’s -Juno Lucina- cameras to monitor premature born babies in incubators.
The heart of the system is the digital video recording and IP transmission system (both for LAN and WAN networks). The system is accessible through three different Java consoles to be loaded on a Windows PC:
1. Nurse Desk console.
2. Doctor console.
3. Parent console.

The Nurse Desk console is used to assign the usernames and passwords for the parents only. The Nurse Desk is provided with a multi-view screen to monitor all connected cameras simultaneously. Each camera can be individually enlarged for the display of more detail. The Nurse Desk doesn’t have access to stored images.

The Doctor console is used for medical users only. This console allows the medical user to access both live and recorded images of all cameras at any time over LAN or WAN networks. Because of the picture quality a doctor could login to the system remotely instantly and decide whether his support is needed on site or not. Even a doctor from an other hospital can access the system providing he has access to the Internet.

The Parent console allow parent to access the system from their home PC with Internet access only for the incubator they have been assigned to with username and password. It is not possible for parents to watch cameras on other unassigned incubators. The footage for the parents is a two minutes delayed playback. The reason for this is that in stressful situations (problems with the baby) parents can be excluded from viewing the images. In a live situation parents could see what is happening real-time and therefore panic and hurry themselves to the hospital with all thinkable risks. To exclude parents from viewing a panic button is pressed by nurse or doctor within two minutes after the event happened. When problems are over the panic button will be released and two minutes later parents will have access again. Each camera has his own panic button connected to the Babywatch system.

The footage can be used for medical archive as well. Certainly when problems with a baby do occur a doctor can always review the footage in a later stage for proper information. When a baby is moved to an other hospital the footage can be burned to DVD for further medical purpose.