1. A patient monitoring system for a patient comprising: a physiological data input device which acquires a plurality of physiological measurements of the patient within a time window thereby generating at least one time window data set; a memory storing a pattern matching algorithm; and a processor in communication with said input device to receive said generated at least one time window data set, and in communication with said memory in order to execute said pattern matching algorithm, wherein said pattern matching algorithm when executed by said processor causes said processor to compress the at least one time window data set, store the compressed at least one time window data set, and perform a pattern match between a reference pattern and the stored at least one time window data set using a distance metric provided by the pattern matching algorithm.