Remote Patient Monitoring: Top Design Challenges

The market for wearable patient monitors is rapidly expanding. Remote patient monitoring technology looks ahead of the Internet of Things in healthcare by allowing doctors to watch patients in real-time.

Fremont, CA: Remote patient monitoring saves both patients' and physicians' time by providing vital patient records on an outpatient basis. Patient mobility is also becoming more popular. Remote patient monitoring systems, which use an encrypted channel to a wireless network, allow patients to leave the hospital sooner and save the need for unnecessary connections. Wearable medical devices may now measure vital signs and function as personal emergency response systems.

Despite being a complicated form of end equipment, patient monitors have five major design challenges: power consumption (or battery life), mobility (or size), patient safety, secure data transfer, and integration.

Let's check some of the top design problems for wearable patient monitoring.

• Secure data delivery

Best-in-class security is necessary for medical sensor patches and wearable patient monitors with wireless connections. The patient data delivered to nurse stations or doctor's offices is confidential, and data theft is a key issue in this situation.

Many security mechanisms safeguard intellectual property and data transfer from patient to doctor. These safeguards should be supported to prevent assaults and secure patient data transfers during processing and conversion to vital-sign parameters for display and transfer. It's known as over-the-air security.

• Battery life

Wearable and portable patient devices are often battery-powered, and one of the primary purchase factors for consumers is battery life. Since most patient monitors measure, and monitor continually, battery life is crucial. Battery-powered systems need precise partitioning, effective use of available energy, and tight space use. It is critical to offer greater functionality while supplying electricity more efficiently and for a longer period in a small place.

• Patient safety

Patient safety is a critical priority in the world of medicine. Portable multiparameter patient monitors assess vital signs and employ power and data isolation to ensure patient safety. Digital isolators and isolated power supplies are helpful to isolate data and power, respectively. Output regulation, feedback mechanisms, the input voltage range, output power, and size concerns, as well as acceptable power topologies, are all key design issues connected with separated power and data. Many contemporary isolated power modules, such as Texas Instruments' miniaturized UCC12050 DC/DC converter, can sustain 500 mW of output power with strengthened isolation.