Abstract: The present invention is a method and system for powering a patient monitoring system. The present invention is a modular patient monitoring system utilizing a bi-directional power bus to efficiently couple a multi-parameter acquisition device, a display and any number of expansion modules. Each coupled device includes a battery, enabling each device to send or receive power through the bi-directional bus. The method and system of the present invention utilizes power from any single battery or from any number of the batteries in the system, as charge is not transferred from one battery to another. The present invention allows for the batteries to charge when it is operated from AC mains derived power.

Abstract: The present invention is a system and method of synchronizing data streams from data acquisition processors. The system and method utilizes a common signal to data acquisition processors to trigger a measuring of the data sampling signal. These measurements are averaged and compared to an expected phase, whereby either of the data acquisition processor's data delivery rate are adjusted if the compound shows a difference greater than a maximum drift rate.