METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN CLINICALLY SIGNIFICANT CHANGES AND ARTIFACTS IN PATIENT PHYSIOLOGICAL INFORMATION

A patient physiological information monitoring system includes a plurality of patient monitoring devices (6) and a physiological information analyzer (2). The plurality of patient monitoring devices (6) monitor physiological information from a patient and generate corresponding physiological signals. The physiological information analyzer (2) processes the monitored physiological information and determines whether a physiological change is a clinically significant event or an artifact. The physiological information analyzer includes at least one receiver (4) that receives the physiological signals from the patient monitoring devices; a signal correlator (10) that generates morphograms from pairs of the received physiological signals; a signature generator (12) that applies a wavelet decomposition to each morphogram to compute a signature for each morphogram; and a decision component (14) that compares the morphogram signatures within and across sampling intervals and determines if a physiological change is a clinically significant change or an artifact.