When monitoring a patient in a healthcare environment, a location of a battery-powered mobile aggregator (MA) sensor (22), which is mounted on a patient with one or more other patient-mounted sensors (12, S1, S2, S3), is monitored. The MA (22) maintains a personal area network (PAN) (24) for the sensors (12, S1, S2, S3) and wirelessly transmits signals from patient mounted sensors (12, S1, S2, S3) to a wired network (18). When the MA (22) comes within range of a mains-powered fixed aggregator (FA) (16), the MA (22) is informed of the availability of the FA (16), transfers patient data communication duties to the FA (16), and shuts down its PAN to conserve battery power. If the patient moves out of range of the FA (16), then the MA (22) regenerates the PAN (24) and resumes wireless patient data transmission.
