With the automation of patient monitoring and the surge in demand for accuracy of data readings, wireless data transmission is bound to become a key medical technology. Those industry standards designed to ensure the storage and transmission of medical and patient data readings will help doctors deal with the ever-increasing data volume of wireless networked medical devices.
Based on the above points, this article will introduce three wireless interfaces that can be applied to networked medical devices: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and ZigBee, and discuss different levels of security and interoperability issues.
The application results on networked medical equipment such as blood glucose monitors (BGM) and insulin pumps show that wireless data transmission technology has significant advantages in simplifying data collection, simplifying patient monitoring, and simplifying device control in the medical field. With more prominent convenience and accuracy, wireless devices are playing an increasingly important role in the medical field in the 21st century. However, this technology also brings security issues.
Can doctors and researchers trust wireless devices? Given the advantages of wireless data transmission, can doctors and researchers not trust wireless devices? Or, the following questions are more conducive to people's understanding of this technology:
●Which wireless technology is suitable for medical equipment
●What is the role of these technologies
●Whether it is necessary to take wireless security measures for the wireless technology used by the medical equipment general program
●How can industry standards in data collection enable wireless devices to play a greater role
Wireless medical equipment can be used in patients' homes, hospitals and assisted living environments.
Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and ZigBee devices (see Figure 1) are all available on the market, so open standardized wireless technology has become the first choice for medical devices. All open standardized wireless technologies use part of the international industrial, scientific and medical frequency bands (ISM frequency bands) commonly used for unlicensed medical equipment, and comply with industry standards and relevant requirements of industry associations, which can ensure that equipment produced by different manufacturers has interoperability Sex.
Figure 1 Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and ZigBee technologies can activate wireless medical devices in patients' homes or medical institutions
Chip inside the device
Microcontrollers are the core of medical equipment. Common peripherals include timers, digital/analog converters, and USB interfaces. By integrating almost all the functions required by medical devices (such as blood glucose monitors, etc.), microcontrollers provide a reliable and low-cost hardware platform that enables medical device manufacturers to focus on software development.
In order to meet the relevant safety requirements of the US Food and Drug Administration, many designers have separated the transmission function of the device from the main medical function. For example, even if the wireless transceiver fails, the blood glucose monitor (BGM) must continue to record the readings of the instrument.
However, the new generation of wearable devices is subject to strict space constraints, and the number of components must be minimized. These devices must use a single microcontroller.
