Serppentino Weblog

Bluetooth Cows

Wireless application on farmers -- A Danish vendor is developing a bluetooth mesh based system – for the cows. With sensors placed on each cow, the system can help farmers monitoring the location and health situation of their livestock.

The system is developed with corporations with the Danish Cattle Research and Danish Institute of Agricultural Science. The developer expect the to sell the system at less than 100 euro. It is expected that farmers with over 100 cows will benefit from buying the system. Original story comes from here.

Young Wireless Geek?

My 12 year old son’s middle school has received a donation – dozens of iBooks, that kids can sign out and use – to do projects and whatever they want. Result 1. I helped my kid to make a Powerpoint movie presentation for his science project, and he used HIS computer at school to display it. Result 2. He came to me and asked for one for him…what dja guys think about this marketing strategy? How old do you think is

What Does HIPAA want?

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA, frequently reasonably misspelled as HIPPA), requests special acts to be done to insure safety and security of health care data, including those for patients, health plan participants and beneficiaries, and so on.

In upating or implementing IT systems, hospitals realize the less competancy of the security standards of the current wireless LAN systems and protocols in compliance with what HIPAA requested. Hospitals and health care providers are discussing about using more secured WPA encryption protocol. Many other products are aiming at this market to target the compliance issues.

Meru Network's solution on HIPPA compliance of wireless LAN

I found a good remark here on the security issue of current wireless LAN system against compliance with HIPPA.

The article compared the security standards of current wireless technology with IEEE with HIPPA requests. It recommended using WPA encryption as meeting the HIPPA standards. Several security management procedures are:

• Defense Against Rogue Access Points
• Notification of Configuration Changes
• Prevention of Additional Internal Security Violations
• Incident Reporting

Security challenges to wireless in health care industry

Hospitals are considering safety issues as well as regulation compliance towards using of wireless technologies including wireless internet, portable devices, and so on.

The major regulation regarding patient information safety for hospitals is HIPPA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). HIPPA requested a security standard that is beyond the current WEP system offers. Some of the FAQs can be found by Dr. Thomas E. Colonna from Physician Office Manager.

Michigan Hospitals Go Wireless

United States hospitals and clinics are relying increasingly on 3Com wireless network solutions to streamline patient-to-physician communications and accelerate patient care. Registration and diagnose for patients, scheduling procedures, and administering medications are completed with greater efficiency than ever before.

Holland Community Hospital (HCH), a 213-bed facility in Holland, Michigan, is using the 3Com solution to deliver wireless bedside charting. Clinicians access charting data via the hospital's modular patient care application, PerSe's Patient 1, using wireless laptops. HCH also uses the AirConnect solution to streamline prescription fulfillment via the network-driven Patient 1 application, enabling physicians to prescribe medications at patient bedsides. The order instantly appears on a pharmacy PC pop-up screen, eliminating the need for physicians to hand-write prescriptions and courier or fax them to pharmacies. Medical staff also use the wireless access to Patient 1 to retrieve radiology test images, such as MRIs, CAT scans, and X-rays at patients' bedsides.

In the fast-paced West Michigan Cardiology Clinic in Grand Rapids, the AirConnect solution is streamlining patient scheduling and treatments for scores of outpatients. Providing nearly fifty patients a day with a full range of cardiology services, including EKGs and vascular echocardiographies, the clinic's 12-person staff often works in hallways outside examination rooms where patient charts reside.

"Nurses, in particular, are constantly coming and going to and from our exam rooms, preparing patients", stated Judy Burns, the clinic's office manager. "With our wireless laptop in the hallway, we can answer phone calls, schedule appointments, and answer doctors' questions about patient histories, without having to rush back to our wired desktops to pull up appropriate files." More details here.

A local wireless service supplier RF Connect has been helping the University of Michigan Hospital at Ann Arbor in rejuventing its aged IT supplies.

Wireless application at hospital

Wireless application at hospital

Using a wireless laptop with a touchscreen, nurses can access medication data to ensure they are administering the right dose of the correct drug. Nurse scans a barcode on the patient's wristband, which brings up the patient's medication record on a wireless laptop. The system issues an electronic alert for several situations: if the time of drug administration isn't within the dosage due-time window; if there are any drugs that sound like or look like the one being administered; and when medication orders have been discontinued.

Since the system was implemented in 2001, helped prevent more than 1,000 medical errors. Errors such as omitted doses have fallen 22% and late doses have dropped 20%. The system also has reduced medication errors involving the wrong dose, wrong drug and discontinued drug orders.

Wireless Hospital On the Way

Picture what’s going to happen in (near) the future hospital: On the road a patient is transferred to the surgery room, all kinds of monitors on patient’s body are sending results to doctors on the other side of the building. While a nurse is stepping to a patient’s bed, the cart that she uses to carry the medication is verifying the patient’s ID with the medicine. And much more. This is the concept of a totally wireless hospital.

The technical challenges for such a hospital, among many others, are to support many different types of wireless monitors and other devices, and to maintain a safe and 0-latency communication among the devices and with the hospital data system.

Oulu University of Finland is on the lead of building up such a wireless hospital. Overall program will be split into three phases. The first is to select promising technologies. The second: laboratory tests of these technologies. The third: transfer those to a live hospital environment.

In addition to the technology challenges, the plan still faces frequency regulation issues, radiation safety issues, and the issue of whether the next-generation technology will be well accepted by people using current technologies. More details can be found here.