FCC’s Best-Kept Secret on Medical Wireless Frequencies
A great deal has been written over the past few years bemoaning the lack of dedicated frequency bands for new wireless medical devices. Likewise, with the most recent initiative between the FDA and FCC in exploring the use of a variety of narrowband frequencies for a body area network, there has been great anticipation that a dedicated FCC-approved frequency band may be made available in the near...
Cyber Monday: How Sensors are Changing Implantable Electronics
It's Cyber Monday, so I'd like to take a minute to examine just how bionic people can become. I just read an article in New Scientist that says if we want robots to think like humans, then robot designs should become more human. The theory is that body shape helps determine thought process. I love this idea because we immediately assign personalities to robots. My Roomba (before being abandoned...
Bluetooth Low Energy Technology Makes New Medical Applications Possible
Wireless technology has been replacing cables and allowing increased patient mobility for decades through ambulatory patient monitors. Portable patient monitors, infusion pumps, surgical foot switches, and dozens of other medical devices currently use wireless connectivity to maintain a connection to monitoring and information systems. One of the toughest issues facing portable medical devices...
Atmel launches tiny low-frequency RF IDIC package for direct coil mounting
Atmel announced the availability of an ultra-small XDFN (extremely thin dual flat no leads) package including a 363-bit read/write transponder IDIC. Measuring 2 by 1.5 by 0.37 mm, the transponder IDIC (ATA5577M1) is a high-volume, low-frequency (LF, 100-150kHz) RFID device designed for small tag applications. The two coil wires can directly be soldered onto the two pads of the package and mounted...
Home Healthcare Equipment Market Expected to Grow
Earlier this week, I wrote a blog about how proposed cuts to Medicare and Medicaid could be a blow to home healthcare. But a new report predicts strong growth for home health equipment going forward. The market for home health equipment is expected to experience a compound annual growth rate of 6% per year over the next five years, according to a recent report from market research...
A Device to Keep Tabs on Tumors
For patients diagnosed with cancer, so-called watchful waiting, in which a doctor monitors the growth before intervening, can be frustrating. But a new device for monitoring tumors developed by medical engineers at Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) could make watching and waiting easier to take. Less than twice the size of a thumbnail, the electronic sensor chip can be implanted near a tumor...
Wireless X-ray system improves imaging efficiency
Designed to improve productivity and efficiency in X-ray imaging, Toshiba America Medical Systems has introduced the Kalare wireless X-ray system. In addition to the original Kalare technology, the system includes a wireless 14- by 17-in. panel with a rotating bucky tray designed for optimal detector movement. The Kalare Wireless X-ray system enhances productivity by eliminating the restrictions...
Wearable Electronics Could Improve Medical Monitoring
It’s a doctor’s dream to be able to monitor patients as they go about their daily lives. That dream could someday become reality, thanks to a breakthrough in wearable electronics. A research team led by University of Illinois materials science engineering professor John Rogers; University of California, San Diego, bioengineering professor Todd Coleman; and Northwestern University...
TI launches 10 Bluetooth low energy profiles
Bluetooth low energy is an important wireless medium for the medical space. We’ve covered it lately and readers have told us how critical it is. Texas Instruments (TI), one of the innovators in wireless technologies, recently launched ten Bluetooth low energy technology (Bluetooth v4.0) profiles with associated sample applications for compliant sensor devices. The Bluetooth low energy...
Medical developers must think differently
Medical developers must think differently The biggest difference between a mainstream embedded application and a medical application is that the medical device usually has to work right all the time, every time. For the majority of embedded applications, it a product has an infrequent error or needs a reboot, it’s a nuisance, but not much more than that. For medical applications, product...
Wireless Medical Device Coexistence
At any given time, a typical home or hospital uses a number of wireless systems (e.g., IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n, or WiFi; Bluetooth; ZigBee; cordless phones) operating on the same industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) band.1,2 Given the increasing use of wireless, RF wireless medical devices and other wireless systems operating nearby can interfere with each other. If a collision between their...
Medical Device Security Is a Serious Issue That's Not Going Away
There's an interesting post on the Wind River Blog Network today about the need to make connected medical devices more secure. Santhosh Nair writes that as medical devices have become smarter and more interconnected, threats to their security have also increased. He cites examples of vulnerabilities in everything from implantables to drug delivery devices. Nair also asserts that the hackers...
Designing Wireless Foot Switches for Medical Devices
Medical equipment users and OEMs have long expressed an interest in wireless foot switches. Their interest has been kindled by: a desire to eliminate the “tripping” hazard cables may represent in the application a desire to have greater freedom in the foot switch’s location relative to the medical device it controls a desire to eliminate the potential for cable damage (the most...
Bluetooth Low Energy Explained
Bluetooth 4.0 is going to lead to some pretty cool medical devices, such as wireless thermometer and heart rate products. One of its key features, Bluetooth low energy, will allow devices equipped with the wireless technology to consume far less power than before. MED asked Tim Whittaker, a system architect in the wireless division of product development firm Cambridge Consultants, what Bluetooth...
Self-Powered Device Transmits Data Wirelessly
Scientists at the Georgia Tech School of Material Science and Engineering have developed the first self-powered nano-device able to transmit data wirelessly over long distances. Detailed in the American Chemical Society's NanoLetters journal, the device could someday lead to tiny implantable medical sensors.  From a press release: Zhong Lin Wang and colleagues explain that advances in...
Researchers Develop Shield to Protect Wireless Implants from Attack
Wireless connectivity in implantable devices is a good thing, allowing doctors to monitor patients to ensure they're getting the best care. But these potentially lifesaving connections also make the devices vulnerable to hostile attacks. Luckily, a team of researchers from MIT and University of Massachusetts Amherst are working on a solution. At the Association for Computing Machinery's...
Bluetooth Thermometer and Heart Rate Products are on the Horizon
The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) today finalized technology that will usher in a new generation of wireless medical devices. New profiles built on Bluetooth Core Specification Version 4.0 will allow wireless monitoring of body temperature and heart rate. Potential applications of the new technology include a thermometer patch that transmits measurements to a mobile phone. “These...
Ford Partners with Medtronic to Connect Cars with Medical Devices
Following its best quarter since 1998, Ford this week announced it's working to integrate its automobiles with medical devices to help drivers stay on top of their health conditions. Using its in-car connectivity system, SYNC, which can connect devices via Bluetooth, access cloud-based Internet services, and control smartphone apps, Ford researchers want to enable drivers to use voice commands to...
Accurate Stroke Diagnosis with an App
Following up yesterday's post about physicians' preference for Apple products, researchers at Canada's University of Calvary have determined that doctors can accurately diagnose stroke using an iPhone app. Using the app, Calgary Scientific Inc.’s ResolutionMD Mobile, doctors were able to achieve the same diagnosis accuracy as with a medical computer workstation. “This iPhone app...
Check Out the 2011 MDEA Winners
 Want to get a taste of the latest and greatest in medical device design? Go to mddionline.com, where you can check out the results of the 2011 Medical Design Excellence Awards, including pictures and descriptions of all 37 winning devices. You can also read in-depth feature coverage by Heather Thompson on how the little things make a big difference in device design and Brian...
Bluetooth in 467 Million Health Devices by 2016
  As many as 467 million health care and personal fitness devices will ship in 2016 using Bluetooth Low Energy, according to a new report by ABI Research. But a delay releasing the spec has given competing technologies a leg up in the new markets, it said.   The Bluetooth Core Specification Version 4.0 was released in July 2010, more than six months later than anticipated, said...
Eucomed: Remote Cardiac Monitoring Could Save Billions
Considering that medical devices make it to market faster and the regulations seem to have a little more clarity in Europe, it makes sense to see what our neighbors are doing (even if Jeffrey Shuren says that safety problems take longer to correct there). Eucomed is proposing a system of remote monitoring for implantable cardiac devices, saying that not only would such a system improve patient...
Keeping Track of FDA's Innovation Pathway
Over at MD+DI, Thomas Blair writes: With the 510(k) controversy simmering at a low boil for now, FDA has introduced yet another pathway to get new medical devices to market—an “innovation” pathway, to be precise.   The agency’s proposed “Innovation Pathway” would put “pioneering medical devices” on the fast-track to review, with CDRH drawing up...
See slides from Freescale’s DesignMED classes
Check out the blog posted by David Niewolny of Freescale. David recently attended the DesignMED conference, which was aimed at designers of medical electronics equipment. Freescale presented a few of the classes and have posted the slides from their presentations. Those slides are included in David’s blog. The classes were centered around the company’s Tower prototyping system and how...
Imec Shows Off Wireless EEG Technology
Last week at MD&M West, I had a chance to sit down with some folks from Imec about the work that the organization is doing in the medical sector. The nanoelectronics research firm was there showing an EEG headset (see a video here) that records high-quality EEG signals and then wirelessly transmits the data to a receiver (up to 10 m away).   The prototype system,...