Wireless Medical Information System Network for Patient ECG Monitoring

The emergence of telemedicine developments and the implementation of wireless networks in the medical field have paved the way for research into how we can best harness wireless technology to provide the medical sector with robust, accurate and 'usable' solutions. This paper describes the implementation of a medical information system network that allows medical instrumentation data to be accessed and controlled by handheld devices operated by medical practitioners. Embedded platforms are used for the medical information nodes that communicate with ECG instruments. We explore and compare the performance of implementing real-time acquisition of patient ECG signals on an FPGA with a software implementation. It was found that the ECG module implemented as custom logic occupied a smaller percentage of the CPU time and also consumed less current than the software implementation