Medical vital signs (110) are captured, recorded, processed, and a signal quality assessment (160) is computed based on signal waveform components such as slope, amplitude, time to rise, time at peak, and degree to which signal peaks (420) and valleys (430). The signal assessment (160) may be used as a basis for rating the quality (130) of the underlying vital signal, to increase the quality of the signal by removing noisy segments and physiologically impossible peaks (424) and valleys (434), to detect a parameter value (120), to label a waveform (140), or to prompt an alarm (550) to indicate the signal has reached a critical level and issue a warning to the user of the vital data. The signal and the assessment are stored in an indexed, searchable data storage memory (590) from which the signals may be retrieved and displayed (300).