Using Zigbee to Integrate Medical Devices

Wirelessly enabling medical devices such as vital signs monitors, ventilators and infusion pumps allows central data collection. This paper discusses how data from these types of devices can be integrated into hospital systems using wireless sensor networking technology. By integrating devices you are protecting investment and opening up the possibility of networking with similar devices. In this context we present how Zigbee meets our requirements for bandwidth, power, security and mobility. We have examined the data throughputs for various medical devices, the requirement of data frequency, security of patient data and the logistics of moving patients while connected to devices. The paper describes a new tested architecture that allows this data to be seamlessly integrated into a user interface or healthcare information system (HIS). The design supports the dynamic addition of new medical devices to the system that were previously unsupported by the system. To achieve this, the hardware design is kept generic and the software interface for different types of medical devices is well defined. These devices can also share the wireless resources with other types of sensors being developed in conjunction on this project such as wireless ECG (electrocardiogram) and pulse-oximetry sensors.