The FCC Will Dedicate Spectrum Solely for the Use of Wireless Medical Devices

Whatever people’s varied opinions on the matter, wireless medical devices are becoming increasingly ubiquitous. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced that it is going to make a significant amount of spectrum available for connecting wireless medical devices as a measure toward more convenient and cost-effective health monitoring. This will, according to FCC chairman Julius Genachowski, make the United States the first country in the world to dedicate spectrum to Medical Body Area Networks (MBANs), as they will be known.

The FCC’s goal right now is to designate two spectrum bands, one of which would only be valid for devices used in medical facilities. A second spectrum band could be used for remote monitoring of patients who are in their own homes.

Genachowski and the FCC have been pushing this idea for two years so that doctors could monitor a patient’s vital signs at home or in the hospital via sensors rather than more invasive tests or tests that cause discomfort to the patient. Currently, in-hospital monitoring involves wired sensors that are connected to machines, making it difficult for patients to move around or leave their beds. Also, the wires make it more difficult to deliver care to patients, increasing the potential for error, and impeding infection control.

At a presentation announcing the MBANs held on May 17 at the George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D.C., Richard Katz, M.D. illustrated the difficulties presented with the mass of wires required to test patients.

“You saw that ICU patient,” Katz said of a slide he presented. “I can barely get my stethoscope on them anymore.” Katz is the director of the cardiology division at the hospital.

Katz went on to give an example of the limits of current wireless monitoring. A diabetes patients, for instance, has to “get the glucometer out, check his blood sugar, write down the number, turn his phone on, go to the diabetes monitoring app, open it, put the number in, then wirelessly get a message regarding his status. Here we have the potential for making that more efficient and seamless, and something patients will use,” he said. “When there are too many steps, we stop using things, when it gets too complicated.”

Genachowski told reporters that a hospital patient monitored with wireless equipment would have approximately a 48 percent chance of surviving a cardiac arrest compared with a 6 percent chance for unmonitored patients.

As well as setting aside the spectrum, Genachowski said he will be working toward other ways that could make it easier for medical device makers to experiment with new types of wireless applications and bring such products to the market.

“To maximize the potential, we will consider new rule makings to allow more intensive use of spectrum,” he said.

Overall, according to Genachowski, the expansion of wireless patient monitoring systems will help speed diagnosis, allow earlier intervention, solicit faster clinician response, and ultimately improve patient care and reduce healthcare costs.