May 24, 2001 – A medical electronics firm in Minnesota is developing Bluetooth solutions for life-saving emergency room and home medical monitoring uses.

Advanced Medical Electronics Corporation, using grant money from the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, is currently developing a Bluetooth interface for medical instruments that would allow instant transfer of time-critical electrocardiograph data as the patient is being transported to the hospital.

The technology – an ECG built into a fully isolated PCMCIA card format – will allow ambulance technicians to send patient data via handhelds to the hospital over wireless or Internet connections for viewing by medical personnel.

Currently, technicians need to establish individual data links for each diagnostic system.

"The automatic discovery of Bluetooth interfaces without cabling or user intervention is an important feature of Bluetooth that makes it a significant benefit in the emergency medical and home monitoring scenario," said Gary Havey, president and co-founder of AME.

Other examples of emergency medical instrumentation that could benefit from wireless Bluetooth data transfers include automated external defibrillators and pulse oximeters, according to AME.

AME, founded in 1990 and located in Minneapolis, has also completed a preliminary demonstration of a Bluetooth interface for a weight scale and a glucose monitor.

Funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the application is designed to both improve patient safety – by removing wires that pose a tripping hazard – and to allow automatic transmission to caregivers of any changes in patient health data.

For more information, visit AME at www.ame-corp.com.