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Finns plan all-wireless hospital

Finland is establishing a project to build the world's first, all-wireless hospital. The hospital aims to eliminate not only fixed-line networks, but also all patient-monitoring leads. Mobile and medical-device manufacturers are working with the regional university to produce a pilot hospital in the Oulu region by 2006.

About 600 kilometres north of Helsinki, Oulu is one of Europe's leading centres for both wireless and medical technologies. Finnish company Nokia, the world's biggest wireless-technology manufacturer, employs 5000 people in the region. VTT Electronics, the country's main electronics research laboratory, is also based in Oulu. With around 500 companies in the region, the area is home to Finland's medical technology industry. Manufacturing patient-monitoring devices is one focus. Finland has been a world leader in patient monitoring for over a decade. Sports medicine is another major focus, as some of the largest companies in the region produce physiological monitors for athletes and gyms. Companies like Polar Electro, the world's biggest manufacturer of sports heart-rate monitors, and Innokas Medical are based in Oulu.

The wireless-hospital research programme is being led by Oulu University. Its research has two main aims: to develop technologies for wireless monitoring of patients; and to create wireless interfaces between medical patient-monitoring devices and hospital data systems.

The Oulu project faces a number of daunting technical and safety challenges. With so many different types of devices using wireless for either local or campus-wide networks, bandwidth must be allocated so conflicts do not occur. Since equipment will be moved around, such allocation should also be dynamic and self-regulating. Wireless networks used in the monitoring of patients must be continuous, with zero or very low latency. One of the challenges facing the Oulu University team must be to quantify exactly how fault-tolerant these networks should be.

A wireless hospital is likely to use a very wide range of frequencies. The University reckons bandwidth use within the hospital will range from low induction frequencies right through to gigahertz microwave transmissions. The lower frequencies are likely to be used in room or bed-range networks, while the main hospital data networks will demand very high frequencies. The research team must find available bandwidth that can be used without seeking special regulatory approval. Any bandwidth used must also be free from outside interference, whether from other transmitters or from electrical plant.

The team must also determine the effects of bandwidth on medical equipment. Hospitals are increasingly relaxed about mobile technology affecting hospital devices — for example, some UK hospitals no longer automatically ban the use of mobile phones. But commercial mobile wireless operates on narrow, high-frequency bandwidths that have been established for mobile use for around a decade. All electrical equipment nowadays has been designed and tested to be resistant to interference from these well-known wavebands. The Oulu team are looking to develop a wide range of wireless applications on unallocated bandwidth. Far less is known about the effects of transmission at these frequencies on existing medical equipment, which is also potentially less stable.

The wireless-hospital team must also consider humans. A number of reports, such as Britain's Stewart Report on mobile phones and health, have raised concerns about the long-term safety of high-frequency mobile devices. Stewart singled out children as being potentially at particular risk. Given that the wireless hospital will use frequencies up to the microwave gigahertz range in close proximity to all patients, including neonates and pregnant women, there must be health concerns about just how safe such frequencies are, and at what power ranges.

The programme has been split into three phases. The current, first phase is to select promising technologies. The second phase will test those technologies within a laboratory environment. The third phase will transfer those technologies to a live hospital environment.