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Archive for January, 2006

Some Things You Need to Know About WLANs in Healthcare

Airwave is a best of breed WLAN management vendor that is infrastructure vendor agnostic. They have a new white paper titled, 5 Things You Need to Know About Managing a Wireless Network in Healthcare. Let's go down the list, shall we?

You cannot manage what you cannot see. The demanding nature of both users and applications […]


Cardiovascular Information Systems: Planning for Success

I came across this story a few weeks ago (it's been a slow news day) about planning for PACS. While we're on the back side of the bell curve for PACS adoption, the adoption of multi modality cardiovascular information systems (CVIS) is just taking off. This article provides a nice outline for some of the […]


Global RFID Forecast - $3 Billion by 2010

In 2005 RFID spending was $504 million, a 39% increase over 2004, according to Gartner (registration required). Their estimate for 2006 is $751 million. Garner's study reports that RFID will not replace bar coding (which is cheaper), but will be used in applications that bar coding can't support.
“For the most part, bar codes are […]


Trends in Nursing Units Impact Patient Care and Technology

Research has shown that good design can impact length of stay (LOS), patient safety, and outcomes. Health Facilities Management published a round table discussion on Nursing Unit Planning and Design. Much of the discussion centered on traditional nursing units and how they're crowded, noisy and chaotic. In response to this there is a trend to […]


Mobile Phones Don't Interfere, Can Improve Patient Safety

First it was the Mayo Clinic, now it's Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) in Singapore who has published a study on the safety of cell phones in hospitals. Phones can be used anywhere in the hospital as long as they're at least 2 meters from a medical device.

TTSH's study found that doctors spend an average […]


Texas Instruments Closes Chipcon Acquisition

Not one to be left out of the wireless sensor market, Texas Instruments has completed their acquisition of low power RF wireless transceiver company Chipcon. (Press release)

The Chipcon product line strengthens
TI’s position in ZigBee, a global standard for wireless monitoring and
control applications. Chipcon was the first company to launch a 2.4 GHz
IEEE 802.15.4 compliant and […]


FDA

I stumbled across this PowerPoint presentation the other day. John Murray at the FDA put together this presentation that spells out expectations regarding patching off the shelf (OTS) software used in medical devices. If you want to know the real story, check it out. The term guidance is in quotes because this is an informal […]


Another Hospital Offers Patients Free Wi-Fi

The Richardson Regional Medical Center now provides free Wi-Fi Internet access to patients and visitors throughout the hospital. What started as a WLAN to support paperless charting became a broader deployment.

Today, the entire hospital is on a Wi-Fi system. The system
includes waiting rooms, patient rooms and associated medical office
buildings. Access is also available to […]


Secondary vs. Primary Alarm Notification - An Artificial Distinction?

Last month when I was at the FDA’s Twinbrook offices, I had a chance to talk with some FDA officials involved in software compliance. We talked about secondary alarm notification systems and how they fit the FDA’s regulatory framework. It was a very interesting conversation. With a finite budget and human resources, the FDA has […]


Meet the Bloggers at HIMSS

Just a reminder that a group of bloggers are going to be getting together one evening at HIMSS. This is our chance (and yours) to get to know the folks
we've been reading, quoting and linking to our blogs.
We're
meeting Sunday evening after the HIMSS opening reception at
8:30 pm at an Irish bar Hennessey's Gaslamp, a […]


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