1. A method for real-time identification of a diabetes-related event in a patient using a monitoring system comprising a physiological data input device, a user input device and a processor, the method comprising: receiving automatically from the user input device at least one reference pattern and associated alert signal; receiving automatically from the physiological data input device at least one time window data set indicative of a physiological measurement related to the diabetes-related event; associating automatically using the processor the at least one time window data set with a data tag; transforming automatically using the processor the associated at least one time window data set into a normalized at least one time window data set, wherein the normalized at least one time window data set has a mean of zero and a standard deviation of one; compressing automatically using the processor the normalized at least one time window data set into a compressed at least one time window data set; storing automatically using the processor the compressed at least one time window data set; and pattern matching automatically using the processor between the reference pattern and the stored at least one time window data set using a distance metric, wherein when the distance metric is less than ε, the processor automatically triggers the alert.