Guidelines for Using Wi-Fi for Medical Devices

On a recent LinkedIn group discussion, the following question was posed by Taimoore (Tim) Rajah of the NIH: We are encountering many hospital which are still based on wired LAN technology for medical device connectivity. Many have mentioned their gripes and major concerns about using Wi-Fi technology for patient monitoring and drug delivery monitoring in the OR as well as ICU departments. Many hospitals are still using WMTS telemetry in their more critical patient monitoring areas. This is very expensive and maintenance for such a system is costly. Can you tell us what are the major criteria to ensure a reliable safe and secure Wi-Fi network for medical devices? If a hospital decides to use Wi-Fi technology, what are the proper guidelines to which they must adhere, to ensure that their current and future Wi-Fi network will be stable, reliable, safe and secure? What are the important features they should consider seriously before embarking on using this type of technology? Great questions. Here we go with some answers: I’ve written before on WMTS and Wi-Fi, and you can read those two posts for more in depth discussions on applying those technologies to medical devices. WMTS Relative to this discussion, the key advantage of WMTS is that it is dedicated to one application (telemetry monitors, or with Philips, patient monitors including telemetry) from one manufacturer. The deployment of this one application in the hospital changes little over time. This means that designin...
Source: Medical Connectivity Consulting - Category: Technology Consultants Authors: Tags: Healthcare IT Wireless Medical Devices Source Type: blogs