Wireless vital signs from a life-supporting medical device exposed to electromagnetic disturbance

Abstract

Objectives: To evaluate the level of agreement of simulated wired and Wi-Fi vital signs output from an intra-aortic balloon pump during exposure to electromagnetic interference from frequency overlapping ZigBee sensors. Material and methods: A series of experiments with interference from single and multiple ZigBee sensors were benchmarked with wired and Wi-Fi output. Tests included single ZigBee sensor adjacent and co-channel interference, and multiple ZigBee interferences towards the Wi-Fi receiver and transmitter. Results: Interference-free differences between wired and wireless aortic blood pressure and electrocardiogram were very small, verified by time domain and Bland – Altman plots. Bland – Altman plots comparing level of agreement in wired and wireless aortic blood pressure and ECG output during interference experiments showed a difference from 0.2 to 0.3 mmHg for blood pressure, and from 0.001 to 0.004 mV for electrocardiogram. Conclusions: Level of agreement in wired and wireless (Wi-Fi) arterial blood pressure and electrocardiogram during single or multiple sensor interference was high. No clinically relevant degradation of Wi-Fi transmission of aortic blood pressure or ECG signals was observed.

Key words::

• Advanced technology
• assessment
• electronics
• equipment
• simulator
• technology for surgical and interventional radiology

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the technical work of Sven Wirsching, Axon Monitoring AS, who installed the Axon Monitor application for data collection and configured the 802.11g radio interface of the IABP used in this study. R. Chávez-Santiago and I. Balasingham acknowledge financial support from the Research Council of Norway provided through the MELODY Project (Contract no. 187857/S10).

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflict of interests. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.