University of New Hampshire researchers are working to make hospital operating rooms safer by fostering better communication among computerized healthcare equipment, such as hospital beds and blood pressure monitors.
They are exploring the use of CANopen, a protocol that uses common hardware and software and that has been used in the automotive industry for years to establish interfaces between computerized car parts.
The trick with using CANopen in healthcare is that the equipment makers are so competitive that they’ve been skittish about handing over information about their products needed to do the research.
“We’re trying to get pieces of equipment that don’t normally talk to each other to do so,” said John LaCourse, professor of electrical and computer engineering at UNH, in a statement. “We’re doing something that we feel is going to save peoples’ lives.”
Having a hosptial bed talk to a blood pressure monitor is important since the raising or lowering of a bed can affect blood pressuer, for example.
“Our primary objective is to reduce the 98,000 annual death rate caused by medical errors,” said principal investigator LaCourse, who is working with a company called IXXAT and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, home of a broader project called the Operating Room of the Future.
Other operating room equipment that could eventually benefit from the research includes ventilation systems, plus ultrasound and electrocardiogram monitors.
bbrown@nww.com
