New opportunities for
medical devices
TINY applications for connected health made possible by Bluetooth
Low Energy, as Adrie Van Meijeren explains
T his past year saw the COVID-
19 pandemic put the future
of healthcare, and healthcare
technology specifically, under a
microscope. Leading the way on that
future is connected health, which
looks to offload the healthcare system
through self-monitoring Internet
of Things (IoT) connectivity, which
has been made possible by new
innovations like Bluetooth Low Energy
(BLE) devices.
Whether it’s a smart thermometer
automatically feeding data back to
a hospital’s cloud, or connected
blood pressure meters that measure
blood pressure readings over a
longer period of time, the benefits of
BLE make these applications viable
thanks to a combination of low power
requirements, disposable batteries,
affordability, small solution size,
built-in security and extensive IoT
connectivity.
Improving patient care
The IoT has already begun creating
new opportunities for medical devices
to help doctors improve patient
care, and with new innovations like
BLE, these devices are improving
dramatically.
Take wearables, such as a
wristband style blood pressure
meter, as an example. Wearables
and connected health go hand-inhand.
Today, if you need your blood
pressure measured, typically you have
it done at the doctor’s office. But for
many patients, a trip to the doctor’s
office, no matter what the reason, is
not exactly a relaxed, care-free time.
The stress of being in a doctor’s
office alone might elevate a patient’s
studies have found that 84% of
patients weren’t waiting 30 seconds
(the bare minimum recommended
time) in between inhalations. The
majority of patients (54%) didn’t even
wait 15 seconds between puffs,
meaning they likely are not receiving
their proper dosage of medicine.
As a result, inhalers aren’t as
effective as they need to be, and
the patient has no idea because
they don’t have a doctor on-hand to
provide immediate feedback. With
the help of BLE, smart inhalers can
address this problem, measuring
the device’s usage in real-time
and providing feedback about
the effectiveness of a patient’s
inhalations, the dosage they’re
receiving and how frequently they’re
receiving it.
If there is an underlying theme
connecting devices such as
wearables, smart glucose monitors
and inhalers, it is that they are
all able to be improved via the
implementation of BLE. BLE devices
with IoT connectivity have created the
opportunity for remote self-monitoring,
allowing patients and their caregivers
to monitor their health and manage
blood pressure reading higher
than usual, resulting in inaccurate
numbers.
With the help of BLE via a sensor
node controller, patients can use
a connected blood pressure meter
at home, helping to ensure a more
typically at-rest blood pressure
reading, which is then transmitted
straight to the cloud for your doctor’s
office to access. That’s higher-quality
information for both the doctor and
the patient, leading to more accurate
diagnoses and prescriptions.
Diabetics are another group
of patients that can benefit from
innovations in BLE. There is a
clear trend away from traditional
blood glucose monitors toward
glucose meter patches, which
don’t require patients to prick their
fingers. Instead, injection devices
such as insulin pens use BLE to
send dosage and time stamp data,
next to monitored glucose levels
from patches, automatically to a
smartphone app for self-monitoring
and a doctor’s office or hospital,
ensuring that healthcare providers are
kept apprised of any changes as they
occur in real-time. Not only is this a
pain-free, longer-lasting alternative,
it’s also a new way of gathering and
storing data about patients’ glucose
levels in real time, made conveniently
accessible right on their phones for
easy reference later on.
Smart inhalers are another
example of how BLE and IoT
connectivity are improving medical
devices. Traditional inhalers require
asthma patients to wait about 30-60
seconds in between puffs for the
medication to go into effect. But
Author details:
Adrie Van
Meijeren, Product
Marketing
Group Manager
Low Power
Connectivity,
Dialog
Semiconductor
20 23 February 2021 www.newelectronics.co.uk
/www.newelectronics.co.uk