In May of this year, the Federal Communications Commission issued a path-breaking decision making spectrum available for a new type of medical telemetry device known as Medical Body Area Networks (or "MBANs"). That spectrum is in a band reserved for flight test telemetry. An MB AN consists of an array of low power sensors placed on a patient's body for purposes of monitoring heart functions, respiration, and the like. Each of the sensors transmits its data to a hub, either worn on the patient's belt, or perhaps to a unit affixed to the wall of the patient's room. The device offers a means of freeing patients and their care-givers from the tangle of cables connecting sensors to monitors as required today. It will increase patient mobility, is expected to reduce the rate of infection, and should lower health care costs. It will facilitate more continuous monitoring of patients and, according to an FCC news release of May 24, "give health care providers the chance to identify life-threatening problems or events before they occur." It also fulfills objectives of the FCC's Broadband Action Plan, as noted by FCC Chairman Genachowski, who indicated when the Order was released that: "The National Broadband Plan identified health care as an area of enormous promise for broadband-enabled innovation."
展开▼
