Advanced Medical Electronics Corporation (AME) proposes to develop a self-discovering wireless connectivity network for medical devices used in the home. Devices utilizing this network will automatically communicate with a home patient-management Internet appliance using a self-discovering wireless link. A self-discovering wireless network is a communications scheme in which devices within a certain area establish connections to one another automatically, without requiring user intervention. One or more medical devices, such as a blood pressure monitor, can automatically connect via this wireless network in the home and securely communicate their data over the Internet. The newly developed wireless international standard called Bluetooth provides the framework for the proposed networking solution. Key benefits of the proposed system are that it is easily installed and it is completely automatic. Authorized medical devices can be used in any room of the house with their data automatically transmitted. The data from the medical devices is encrypted to insure patient privacy. In phase I, a portable battery-powered Bluetooth blood pressure monitor and prototype home patient-management Internet appliance will be developed and tested to prove the feasibility of automatically collecting data over the Internet from a wireless home medical device.
The competitive advantage of the proposed system is in the use of a wireless self-discovering network to automatically transfer data from a medical device to an Internet appliance installed in the home. This is made possible by the new Bluetooth wireless standard. This is a new paradigm from the methods others have used for home medical monitoring.
