Abstract: Disclosed embodiments include a wireless portable medical monitoring apparatus that includes (a) a hospital bed or medical stretcher; (b) a plurality of wireless biomedical sensors attached to the hospital bed or medical stretcher; and (c) a communications module configured for wirelessly transmitting jointly compressed biomedical signals. The communication module is configured to transmit signals as a block of coherent data. Additionally, the communication module includes fast-joint coding and decoding, transmission error correction, and information exchange between different layers to optimize network throughput.