A patient monitor includes a plurality of monitoring devices which collect data about a patient. An evaluation unit determines the patients condition from the collected data and generates an alarm if the patients condition warrants notifying an appropriate medical responder. A communication unit which transmits the alarm to a access point over a hospital Internet protocol (IP) network, the communication device includes a first transmitter for transmitting the alarm using a primary link and a second transmitter for transmitting the alarm using a secondary link in response to the transmission using the primary link failing.