Described herein is a patient monitoring system that includes a body
network (16) with at least one sensor (12) that senses physiological
information about a patient and a cognitive device (2) for communicating
the physiological information to a remote location. The cognitive device
includes a cognitive radio (4), a cognitive monitor (10), and a
transmitter (8). The cognitive radio (4) checks detected frequency
spectra (6) for unused bandwidth and recommends one or more bands on
which to transmit clinically relevant information received from the body
network (16) to the remote location; the cognitive monitor (10) receives
the information from the body network (16), prioritizes the information
based at least in part on a set of rules (30), and selects which
information to transmit based on the prioritization and the recommended
transmission bands; and the transmitter (8) transmits the selected
information as a junction of priority over at least one or the
recommended transmission bands.