Creating solutions for health through technology innovation

Technology extends medical practice

The overall market for medical electronics varies from equipments found in labs and hospital wings, to doctors’ offices, and finally to the home. These systems range from being large, stationary, low-volume and costly, to being increasingly small, portable, high-volume and affordable. At the personal end of the care spectrum, some devices that are wearable are beginning to emerge, such as wristbands for example, which are as lightweight and inexpensive as possible. In a group apart, and different from other small systems, are implants such as pacemakers, which are neither inexpensive nor consumer-selected; nevertheless, they do represent the ultimate in portability.

Extending throughout all of these application areas is the need for network communications, frequently wireless, to report on readings and aid in diagnostics and treatment. Dubbed e-health/telehealth or telemedicine, depending on the emphasis of the application as preventive or curative, wireless network communications are rapidly becoming an essential part of medical practice (Figure 2). Telehealth enables the continual monitoring of patients’ conditions, wherever they may be, helping to gather data for a more complete medical profile and thus enabling physicians to personalize treatment and make it more proactive. Telemedicine has many uses, not least of which is that it allows medical establishments to gather more complete data, run more sophisticated analyses, and consult more effectively to obtain better diagnoses.

At present, various media, transmission and security standards for these networks are being employed, while still other standards are emerging. TI participates actively in standards organizations and develops ICs that support a variety of specifications, helping to enable the best networking solutions to emerge.

The accompanying table (Figure 3) lists some of the many design opportunities in medical equipments, ranging from applications available to consumers, through systems commonly used in medical offices and hospital rooms, to equipment used in medical test centers and labs. Medical imaging, listed as its own category, is in the vanguard of diagnostics and offers some of the greatest challenges to equipment designers.