Medical Device Applications of Wireless Sensing Taking OffMedical Device Applications of Wireless Sensing Taking Off
June 12, 2013
Today's wireless ECG patches and pulse oximeters are among the first examples of a new generation of devices that are unleashing the potential of the wireless body area network, facilitating patient care for clinicians whether they are at the bedside or hundreds or thousands of miles away. Despite the ubiquity of wireless functionality in the consumer technology realm, however, the widespread use of wireless technology in medicine is rather new. While it brings undeniable benefits, wireless sensing for medical device applications also poses unique challenges. For instance, delivering power to the wireless devices can prove difficult, as can maintaining a stable and reliable connection across various use-case scenarios.
Wireless Patient Care
The most obvious benefits of wireless sensing for medical device applications is the ability to improve patient comfort and data tracking. Wired sensors limit patient mobility and can interfere with actions that can support healing. When hospital patients ambulate, the sensors can get inadvertently disconnected, interrupting monitoring.
At the same time, they also block health care providers' access to the patient. Eliminating the spaghetti of leads that is attached to some patients will make it easier and less time-consuming to deliver patient care. This can reduce costs while the better monitoring improves outcomes.
Famed cardiologist Eric Topol, who is the author of "The Creative Destruction of Medicine" sees wireless technology as playing an important role of what he refers to as the "digitization of humans." Other technologies playing a supporting role in this are genomics, imaging technology and health information systems, which in the future will likely be interfaced with one another.
Wireless sensing technology for medical device applications is receiving support from a variety of entities. For instance, the Center for Wireless Information Network Studies received $1.2 million from the federal government to work on adapting existing wireless technologies like Bluetooth for BANs. The Federal Communications Commission has allocated spectrum for wireless sensing for medical device applications and the IEEE has created a standard similar to the 802.11 standard for wireless computer networking to support the technology as well. The X-Prize Foundation has even gotten into the game, offering a $10 million prize for the invention of a non-invasive body sensor inspired by the tricorder from Star Trek. While the prospect of developing a real tricorder-like device may seem remote in the near-term, researchers are continually expanding how diseases are diagnosed. Organizing the competition around a recognized device from a beloved science-fiction television show grabs the attention of the public and of the scientific community while also spurring innovation in this area. The foundation has organized a separate award dubbed the Nokia Sensing X Challenge to inspire breakthroughs in the area of real-time collection of health metrics.
Technologies Supporting Medicine's Wireless Future
Having sensors that send signals wirelessly isn't enough to enable device companies to truly "Cut the Cord," as it were. Wireless sensing for medical device applications without on-body power of some form or another would just end up replacing one form of wire with another. However, technology is advancing in that area as well. For instance, a chip that captures body heat has been developed that can generate up to three volts of power. Alternately, a skin-sensing patch developed by John Rogers, PhD at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign contains its own power coil. Lasting approximately two weeks, this self-powered sensor contains light, temperature, EKG, EEG and EMG sensors. It can even track strain and skin hydration, and it naturally falls off through skin exfoliation before its built-in power source runs out. Another technology under development at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology uses power from ions in the inner ear to power a radio transmitter. In Michigan, researchers have found a way to use the heart's electric fields to power a pacemaker, as well.
While today's deployed wireless sensing technology is limited to pulse-ox and ECG monitors, new technologies are being developed at a dizzying pace. Between edible wireless sensors, sensors using the ultra-high speed 5G networks under development, and sensors powered by super-capacitors, a future that would once have been considered science fiction is rapidly coming to fruition.
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