Hospitals get ready… set… go… Wireless!

The revolution will not be televised.

It will be handheld.

Because the future is now.

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Medical Devices in Hospitals to Go Wireless

FCC Is Expected to Vote to Open Up Spectrum, Easing Patient Monitoring and Making Product Development Less Risky

Hospitals are getting ready to cut the cord.

In place of knots of wires stuck to patients to monitor their blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen level and body temperature, doctors and the companies that supply them hope to use Band-Aid-like sensors to accomplish the same task wirelessly.

The Federal Communications Commission is expected to vote Thursday to open up spectrum for wireless medical devices, raising the possibility of easier hospital-patient monitoring, fewer tubes in emergency rooms, and more remote monitoring at home.

The shift will make it easier to track patients’ conditions, improving the odds that health problems will be caught before they become an emergency, analysts and clinicians say.

Wireless Hospitals

While wireless technology has boomed for phones and computing, it has been slower to take hold in the medical sphere. Hospitals have