Qualcomm released a new 3G chip that supports both EV-DO (Verizon and Sprint) and HSDPA (AT&T and T-Mobile). This will result in radio cards that will run on either technology and provide the greatest choice in selecting carriers.
The chips are apparently targeting laptops and should appear in new laptops by the second quarter of […]
A recent survey of ED docs indicates that they believe that ED overcrowding is getting worse. From the Modern Healthcare story:
In a survey of nearly 1,500 practicing emergency physicians, more than 80% said crowded conditions in their emergency departments had increased either slightly (40.2%) or significantly (42.4%) in the past year, according to a recent […]
Bruce Hubbert who writes the Freakquency blog has another good post titled, “The Myth of the Self-Monitoring WLAN.” Duke University recently suffered a WLAN outage caused by an unanticipated flood of ARP (address resolution protocol) traffic. The details of the failure are used to demonstrate the need for network and WLAN monitoring that goes […]
According to a survey by CHIME, more hospitals are reducing restrictions on cell phones.
Twenty-three
percent of the 185 survey respondents reported their organization has
lifted all restrictions on mobile phone use, up 5.5% from a similar
survey conducted by the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based organization in 2004.
Only 11 respondents, or 6%, indicated that cell phone use is entirely
prohibited at […]
Vocera has named Robert J. Zollars as their new Chairman and CEO. Like many health care executives, Zollars got his start at American Home Products, before moving to Baxter. From the press release:
Most recently, he served as President and CEO of Wound Care Solutions,
the leading operator of outsourced chronic wound care centers serving
275 hospital customers […]
I was in hog heaven at this year’s AAMI meeting. Connectivity was a major theme, and during every time slot in the program there was at least one presentation dealing with connectivity. During my presentation Monday afternoon, there was one I really wanted to see that dealt with alarm notification.
Lots of discussion centered around the […]
Here's another clip from AAMI, this one from the exhibition floor. The Draeger TeleSmart was shown at last year's AAMI. Since then, they've received their 510(k) and released the product; manufacturing is gearing up now, and the product should be shipping later this summer or fall. Jeff gave a quick product presentation/demo that would make […]
Lantronix has scored their biggest medical device deal to date, “a custom, battery-operated version of its commercially-available WiBox® 802.11 b/g wireless device server for the manufacturer’s medical point-of-care application.” (press release)
Terms of the agreement include a non-recurring payment and minimum
quantity purchase commitment valued at approximately $360,000 over the
initial 12 months of production and an additional […]
Respironics was showing Respi-Link, remote monitoring capabilities through an RS232 serial port. The biomed must take the device down to their shop and connect it to a computer that runs a special Respironics client. Through this connection, users can download firmware updates and do run some diagnostics. Respironics is using Axeda for this feature, and […]
I saw the new Hospira pump - you know, the one with the funny name (okay, I'm writing this on the plane and can't remember the Symbiq). It has a very nice color touch screen that covers almost the entire front of the device. The device has an 802.11b radio presently, but will have an […]
