Abstract: An electronic patient monitoring system that includes a not easily removable patient identification and monitoring device, an observer transmitter/receiver device to communicate with the not easily removable patient identification and monitoring device when within a specified visual range of each other within a predefined time interval, and a central computer system including, at least, a computer processor, communications components and system software to communicate with the observer transmitter/receiver device at specified/predetermined time intervals to receive observer- and patient-specific information.