Prajakta Desai
Mark Nadeski
The world of patient care is evolving to the point where the most important features in today’s patient monitors are mobility, ease of use and effortless patient data transfer. Incorporating wireless connectivity into medical devices is driving improvements in these areas and will transform the traditional look and feel of a hospital room.
A traditional hospital room is built around the notion that the patient is primarily stationary in their hospital bed. A patient is hooked up to a patient monitor through cabled sensors that track the patient’s vital signs including blood pressure, electrocardiogram, pulse oximetry, temperature, etc. Most current systems have network connectivity allowing patient monitors to share this information with networked central monitoring stations, providing caregivers the ability to check a patient’s information without having to be physically in the room.
Newer, improved connectivity patient monitors incorporate a wireless protocol, such as 802.11b, enabling the usage of wireless sensors to monitor a patient’s vital signs, providing the patient the ability to easily leave the hospital bed while being continuously monitored without having to be tethered to the patient monitor itself. As an added benefit for facilities where patients are not primarily stationary, a patient’s location can be wirelessly tracked throughout the hospital grounds providing medical staff with knowledge of where patients using this technology are at any given time. Similarly, the patient monitor can wirelessly transmit patient data not only to central monitoring stations, but also to mobile devices that enable monitoring capabilities for medical staff while reducing the expense and limitations of wired network cabling to the patient monitor itself.
Typical use cases for wireless technology in the hospital environment for remote patient monitoring are shown below:
In addition to monitoring inside the hospital environment, the ever-increasing need to minimize healthcare costs is driving healthcare providers to move patient treatment and monitoring outside the hospital. Here, wireless technology can assist customers to enable remote monitoring of people from the comfort of their own home
Customers can evaluate TI’s connectivity solutions and broad, scalable processor portfolio to determine how to address a wide range of needs demanded from the patient monitoring space. For example, our WiLink™ 8 Wi-Fi® + Bluetooth® combo connectivity devices and the Sitara™ processors family can make a great solution for the next generation of patient monitoring equipment.
Below is a generic block diagram illustrating how TI’s WiLink 8 module easily connects to any of the Sitara processors through the SDIO, UART or SPI interfaces, allowing wireless data to be received and accessed by the ARM® Cortex®-A core running a high-level OS (HLOS). Utilizing the integrated display subsystem and graphical acceleration, the Sitara processor provides an enhanced user interface.
The WiLink 8 modules are a great wireless connectivity choice for customers designing patient monitors developed on Linux®. Why?
TI’s Sitara processors, based on ARM Cortex-A cores, are available for implementing a scalable range of patient monitors. The ARM Cortex-A runs a HLOS and the additional graphics engine provides the graphical user interface for the care giver. An optional DSP can perform real-time analytics for specified patient data. TI provides an online unified software developer kit for all Sitara processors with Processor SDK (software development kit), allowing development to scale across families.
To start developing your monitoring solution with WiLink 8 connectivity modules and Sitara processors, check out the WiLink™ 8 dual-band 2.4 & 5 GHz Wi-Fi + Bluetooth COM8 evaluation module that can be used with the Sitara AM335x processor evaluation module.
This blog entry is not intended for customers designing and manufacturing life-critical medical equipment. To the extent customers’ patient monitoring solutions are life-critical medical equipment, TI’s terms of sale require that customers execute a special contract with TI specifically governing such use. Life-critical medical equipment is medical equipment where failure of such equipment would cause serious bodily injury or death (e.g., life support, pacemakers, defibrillators, heart pumps, neurostimulators, and implantables). Such equipment includes, without limitation, all medical devices identified by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as Class III devices and equivalent classifications outside the U.S.
TI PROVIDES TECHNICAL AND RELIABILITY DATA (INCLUDING DATASHEETS), DESIGN RESOURCES (INCLUDING REFERENCE DESIGNS), APPLICATION OR OTHER DESIGN ADVICE, WEB TOOLS, SAFETY INFORMATION, AND OTHER RESOURCES “AS IS” AND WITH ALL FAULTS, AND DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS AND IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR NON-INFRINGEMENT OF THIRD PARTY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS.
These resources are intended for skilled developers designing with TI products. You are solely responsible for (1) selecting the appropriate TI products for your application, (2) designing, validating and testing your application, and (3) ensuring your application meets applicable standards, and any other safety, security, or other requirements. These resources are subject to change without notice. TI grants you permission to use these resources only for development of an application that uses the TI products described in the resource. Other reproduction and display of these resources is prohibited. No license is granted to any other TI intellectual property right or to any third party intellectual property right. TI disclaims responsibility for, and you will fully indemnify TI and its representatives against, any claims, damages, costs, losses, and liabilities arising out of your use of these resources.
TI’s products are provided subject to TI’s Terms of Sale (www.ti.com/legal/termsofsale.html) or other applicable terms available either on ti.com or provided in conjunction with such TI products. TI’s provision of these resources does not expand or otherwise alter TI’s applicable warranties or warranty disclaimers for TI products.
Mailing Address: Texas Instruments, Post Office Box 655303, Dallas, Texas 75265
Copyright © 2023, Texas Instruments Incorporated