New WiMAX Standard Passed
The IEEE has approved the 802.16e specification as the standard to be used for metropolitan area networks. Now remote monitoring vendors looking for wireless technologies can add WiMAX to the rest of the wide area network alphabet soup (GPRS, EDGE, CDMA, W-CDMA/UMTS, CDMA2000, EV/DO – and I think I left of one or two QualComm technologies).
The technology will be known as Wi-MAN, for Wireless Metropolitan
Area Network, or WiMAX, for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave
Access. It extends the 802.16 standard previously approved for such
networks by specifying a system for combined fixed and mobile broadband
wireless access in licensed bands under 6 GHz.
The technology works with existing Wi-Fi networks, enabling
users to move between Wi-Fi and WiMAX connections. Antennas on each
building within a WiMAX network direct signals sent from outside a
building to the WiMAX base stations and those sent from inside a
facility to Wi-Fi access points.
Interoperability is a plus, and something that wireless carriers using GPRS/EDGE/UTMS or CDMA/CDMA2000 1x/CDMA2000 1x EV-DO) can't offer. Cities looking to adopt WiMAX, like Philadelphia and Portland, OR, will make interesting pilot sites for remote monitoring applications.
UPDATE: UK firm Cambridge Consultants (they helped Philips develop their latest DECT based WMTS telemetry radios) announces support for 802.16e. They've been engaged by chip maker picoChip to create reference designs for an 802.16e “software-defined” radio using picoChip's chip. Software-defined radios are all the rage these days.
Commissioned by picoChip, the designs will
provide the air interfaces required for both base station and mobile
station equipment in WiMAX 802.16e wireless networks, but in forms
which are inherently software-upgradeable. This flexibility will allow
the electronics OEM community to develop and deploy while the WiMAX
specification is maturing – without fear of incompatibility or
obsolescence.
The
software-defined nature of the designs will allow OEMs to accommodate
substantial changes to 802.16e equipment in the field, by means of a
software patch. This substantially reduces the risk associated with
upgrades to the specification – which are likely to be introduced as
field experience with mobile WiMAX is gained. It also means that
manufacturers can extend system functionality, for example to include
MIMO or smart antenna technology.
[Hat tip: Mobile Health Data]
Feds 20 Messaging and Vocabulary Standards for Government HIT
Monday Health Data Management had an intriguing little story about messaging and vocabulary standards:
Department of Health and Human Services has published a notice listing
the 20 messaging and vocabulary standards the federal government has
adopted for its health care information systems.
The
government first adopted five standards in March 2003 and another 15 in
May 2004. So while the policy is not new, the notice published Dec. 23
in the Federal Register could be a convenient document for regional health information organizations and other interoperability initiatives.
“The
portfolio of 20 adopted standards will be used in all federal agencies
implementing new, and to the extent possible, in modifying existing
health information technology systems, as well as related business
processes,” according to the notice. Full text is available at gpoaccess.gov/fr/index.html.
Sweet, except the link provided is simply a query page for the Federal Register, rather than the actual text. I've dug around and found the document (DOCID:fr23de05-78), and this should be the link to the HTML version (I couldn't get the PDF version to download). Want the synopsis of the “20 adopted standards”? HL7, DICOM and SNOMED.
UPDATE: The Healthcare IT Guy adds some insight in his followup post to the above, here.
Philips Wins CVIS Deals at UCLA and LA County Hospitals
In December Philips announced receiving the business for automating the cath labs at LA County Harbor at UCLA and LA County Olive View Medical Centers. The deal comes with winning outfitting two new cath labs at each hospital with Philips latest cath lab x-ray gear. The deal appears to be for a single modality cardiology PACS, rather than a full multi modality CVIS.
to allow the two hospitals to network. I believe that for the broad
networking we have planned, a single vendor is the way to go”, says Dr.
William French, Medical Director of the cath lab at LA County Harbor,
UCLA. “As a cardiologist, it makes my job easier to partner with
Philips so they can provide the network integration into the hospital
environment.”
Provided at least some of the cardiologists practice at both hospitals, a common solution for both hospitals makes sense. The “single vendor” benefit here is more in only learning one workstation user interface, since DICOM makes images interoperable between systems from different vendors – which appears to be how Philips will do the integration:
hospitals will be able to perform 'Query/Retrieve' orders of studies
done at either hospital, facilitating better collaboration and patient
transfer between the two hospitals.
All compelling reasons for their decision; that and because Philips probably threw in the cath lab PACS for free to get the x-ray business.
Kingston General Hospital Goes Wireless
Canadian Healthcare Technology reports that Kingston General Hospital, Kingston Ontario, has implemented a, “fully integrated wireless communications solution.” Sounds sexy and exciting, doesn’t it? It seems they’ve deployed WiFi house-wide:
KGH is the first teaching hospital in Canada to integrate wireless applications with a point-of-care computer that accommodates intravenous infusion, patient monitoring and clinical best practice guidelines in a single platform through an advanced infusion pump system. This means additional support is available to ensure patient safety. These new infusion pumps provide the care team with the most up-to-date drug information through the wireless network while also communicating with other devices to alert caregivers when a problem arises.
Interestingly, no vendor names were mentioned in the writing of this article unless they’re Canadian. So the above vendor(s) shall remain cloaked in mystery. I will however guess the pump vendor above is Cardinal with the Alaris Medley smart pump – they’re the only vendor to offer a patient monitoring module with their pumps.
So, in addition to wireless medical devices, KGH as also deployed (or actually extended an existing deployment) voice over IP (VoIP) wireless phones. They also have, “wireless access to their medical records system,” and a “safety alerting system.” The former I assume is paperless charting with computers on wheels (COWs), the latter I can only guess is an integration between their VoIP phones and infusion pumps using Emergin middle ware (besides the fact that Alaris uses Emergin for this capability, they mention that they have the option of integrating their nurse call system with their VoIP phones, another Emergin capability).
TravelNet Technologies comes in for a mention and quote (along with Bell Canada who designed and installed the network) about their ability to offer patients and visitors Internet access through the WLAN. This is no great shakes as there are numerous network appliances that provide this network service – unless TravelNet is helping the hospital charge for Internet access, which takes all sorts of backend infrastructure.
All in all a pretty cool deployment, if scandalously shy of, you know, facts and details and stuff.
HIT Vendor Consolidation Heats Up: Market Desire for Single Vendor Solutions Blamed
Health Data Management had a story last week about vendor consolidation in the health care IT market. I've written about this before here and here. The gist of the story goes, the economy is strong, stock prices are up, let's go shopping! Certainly some vendors have sound strategic reasons for acquisitions. But, judging by the historical track record of acquisitions and mergers (which is pretty poor), most corporations must have excess capital burning a hole in their pocket that they'd rather spend than give back to stockholders. The current acquisition frenzy is further justified by the following canard:
The impetus behind the consolidation trend is the fact that many health
care organizations want to consolidate the numbers of vendors they deal
with. The effort to build a national health information
network–anchored by regional health information organizations–has put
a premium on information systems interoperability.
To ease the task, providers are looking to reduce the number of
disparate systems in their organizations, says Randall Lipps, chairman,
president and CEO at Omnicell Inc., a Mountain View, Calif.-based
vendor of ancillary information systems. As a result, “hospitals want
to buy a total solution from a single vendor,” he adds.
There is something to be said for a well integrated suite of applications sold and supported by one vendor. Sadly, just because they're all sold by the same vendor is little indication as to the extent or quality of integration. In addition, the scope of hospital information systems is getting so broad – from medical device integration to RHIOs – that the expectation that any single vendor can provide everything is becoming unrealistic. That's why you hear vendors talking about software architectures that facilitate easier and higher quality systems integration.
