A patient monitoring system with an efficient pattern matching algorithm, a method, and a computer product thereof are disclosed. The system may include a physiological data input device or sensor which receives a plurality of physiological measurements within a time window thereby generating at least one time window data set, a memory which stores a program, and a processor. The program when executed by the processor, causes the processor to compress the at least one time window data set to a reduced-rank basis, and perform a pattern match between a reference pattern and the compressed at least one time window data set using a distance metric.