Feds Free up Frequencies

Health Data Management Magazine, March 1, 2009

The Federal Communications Commission last November adopted rules to permit unlicensed radio transmitters, including medical telemetry systems, to operate in unused television spectrum, called "white spaces."

The order permits telemetry systems to specifically operate in Channel 37. This is designed to significantly reduce the risk of interference from other devices operating on nearby channels. Television stations, in particular, can no longer operate on Channel 37.

In response to concerns from Waukesha, Wis.-based GE Healthcare and the American Society for Healthcare Engineering, the FCC order also required "shielding" of signals from devices operating at the edges of channels 36 and 38. The shielding will offer more protection to telemetry devices from signals bleeding over into Channel 37.

Further, "fixed" devices that broadcast from a tower and are licensed by the FCC must periodically transmit a signal with their identification. This will facilitate identification of sources of interference that does occur on channel 37, according to the order.

Please Identify Yourself

But the shielding requirement was important for another reason, says Tim Kottak, an engineering general manager in the monitoring solutions division at GE Healthcare. That's because some portable personal computing devices now available and on the horizon aren't licensed by the FCC so they don't, or won't, have to transmit an identification signal.

Examples of these devices include cell phones with a Web browser and video applications, or a device now being developed that would transfer video from a computing device to a television. "People with these devices will be in or around hospitals," Kottak says. "The signals could be thousands of times more powerful than telemetry."

Now, the challenge for the health care industry, Kottak says, is to educate hospitals about their legacy telemetry systems that operate outside Channel 37.

How Worrisome?

As television channels are vacated during the coming years, they won't be available for other uses immediately and that's good, says Jim McGrath, a project analyst at Cary (N.C.) Hospital.

Populating the channels could take several years and leaves plenty of time for testing to identify and resolve any interference issues, he notes. "It's one thing to be using these frequencies for text messaging between teenagers, it's another thing altogether to be life-threatening to patients."

Still, interference may not be as worrisome as it once was. Some hospitals report no interference problems with their wireless networks.

The six hospitals of Clarian Health in Indianapolis run mobile phones and PDAs accessing clinical systems, Voice over Internet Protocol telephones, wireless IV pumps, voice-activated communication badges, and push-to-talk devices over their wireless networks from MobileAccess, Vienna, Va.

Still, all the wireless traffic hasn't caused any interference with medical devices, says Richard Johnson, CIO. "We just have not had any interference issues."

No Interference Issues

Nor is there a problem at St. Joseph's Hospital Health Center in Syracuse, N.Y., which first went wireless some eight years ago, says Chuck Fennell, CIO. "We haven't experienced any interference issues and we have literally more than a thousand devices running off the network."

But Kottak of GE Healthcare cautions: "Wireless technology has evolved, it's gotten better and that's certainly helped reduce interference. But it still is an issue to be watchful over."

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