Embodiments of the disclosure are directed to a system for analysis of respiratory distress in hospitalized patients. The system performs multi-parametric simultaneous analysis of respiration rate (RR) and pulse oximetry (SpO2) data trends in order to gauge patterns of patient instability pertaining to respiratory distress. Three patterns in SpO2 and RR are used along with LOWESS algorithm and Chauvenets criteria for outlier rejection to obtain robust short term and long term trends in RR and SpO2. Pattern analysis detects the presence of any one of three pattern types proposed. Further, a learning paradigm is introduced to find unknown instances of respiratory distress. This algorithm in conjunction with the learning model allows early detection of respiratory distress in hospital ward and ICU patients.