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June 03, 2010

Patient Monitoring Without the Wires-Is Ultra Wideband Frequency the Future?


The rapidly aging population, a shortage of nursing professionals and a push to lower costs is providing the perfect time for the introduction of remote monitoring devices. The FCC (News - Alert), in their recently published National Broadband Plan, stated that remote monitoring has the potential of saving $200 billion over the next 15 to 25 years.

With so many companies in the “connected healthcare” space, MedHealth World will be analyzing the specific characteristics that differentiate solutions and provide benefits for the patient as well as the healthcare provider. Sensiotec is a medical technology development firm based in Atlanta that used Ultra WideBand (News - Alert) for wireless patient monitoring through its Preventa care solution for hospitals and patient care facilities. There are no leads, wires or pressure pads; it’s a truly unbound device.

The core of the Preventa line of products is the Bed Sensor Panel, which is placed under the patient’s mattress. According to Robert Arkin, Sensiotec’s (News - Alert) CEO, “the BSP is a wireless sensor integrating UWB radar, directional antennas, digital signal processing and a wireless communications module. The UWB radar sends out ultra low power, very short duration pulses at a radio frequency of 4 gigahertz. These pulses, which are millions of times weaker than those produced by a common cell phone or baby monitor, penetrate the human body and reflect off of the heart, lungs, thorax and torso to accurately detect micro movement within the body. The Bed Sensor Panel then receives back and processes the reflected signals using embedded digital signal processing algorithms.”

“These algorithms,” Arkin says, “can extract the heart and respiration motion signal, remove unwanted interference and static noise, and then digitally separate, filter and process the signals to a digital format that contains accurate heart and respiration rates and movement data.”

Up until a few years ago, Ultra Wideband frequency was used exclusively by the military. It has been used in radar imaging, and is unique in that it does not interfere with more commonly used bandwidth Thus UWB can coexist with other technologies, including ZigBee. This is particularly important in hospital settings as more equipment and devices move to wireless technologies. 

The Bed Sensor Panel is able to monitor heart rate, respiration, bed presence and bed movement. This allows nursing staff to monitor patients with a wide range of chronic diseases including CHF, COPD, and sleep apnea and other disorders that affect sleep like epilepsy, and to do so safely and cost-effectively. The motion detection capabilities can be used to monitor when a person is attempting to get out bed.

The Preventa system includes a wireless repeater as well as a base station and can be programmed for each patient’s individual needs and health parameters. It can be monitored from a nearby nursing station or a remote location.

According to Arkin, “it is estimated that one million patients per year fall in acute care settings with 30 percent of those incurring moderate to severe injury, burdening the health care system with an estimated cost of $6 billion dollars per year.” Sensiotec hopes their advance warning fall prevention system will help reduce that cost. Preventa also has the capability of automatically alerting nursing staff when a patient hasn’t moved within a set period of time, triggering staff to take action to prevent bed sores. Treatment for bed sores costs an average of $43,000 per hospital stay and is not generally reimbursable if the bed sores developed during the stay, so reducing their occurrence can help with cost reduction as well as improving patient care outcomes.

Robin Wright is a consultant with more than 20 years of experience in the IT and telecom industries. To read more of her articles, please visit please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Michael Dinan
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