Vitals
More than twenty-five years ago, a doctor from a regional hospital sponsored a senior project at Texas A&M University that I was fortunate to be a part of. The doctor needed to solve a problem.
One critical health vital that monitors the patient’s heart is an electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG). Wired electrodes measure the electrical signals from the heart, and an attached monitor displays those signals as waves on a screen.
The problem was that the wires connecting the electrodes to the monitor kept getting in the way of the medical team helping the patients. It would become tangled or disconnected.
A wireless EKG didn’t exist.
We were able to build a prototype, and there were other senior projects throughout the years that continued to improve the design. The last design improvement was displaying the EKG on a Palm Pilot.
With the technological promise of 5G and medical IoT devices, I find hope that this doctor’s vision finally comes true.
5G brings the promise of ultra-connectivity. Imagine a redesign of the EKG with untethered capabilities that helps the patient and the medical team. Like smart meters that monitor electricity usage in a smart city, secure data connections are paramount. Healthcare privacy laws enforce HIPAA and GDPR compliance.
More questions come to mind for healthcare IT organizations. How will they secure the data connections? And which technology is best for your healthcare IT network? Private 5G network or WiFi?
#5g #iot #securedata