In-vivo NFC: remote monitoring of implanted medical devices with improved privacy

The use of implantable medical devices (IMDs) are on the rise. Heart pacemakers, brain neurostimulators, cochlear implants, gastric stimulators, cardiac defibrillators, foot drop implants, and insulin pumps have been widely used, and more are on the horizon. Wireless communication capability for these devices is considered essential for these devices, for convenient monitoring and configuration [1]. But there also has been privacy and even safety concerns on the use of wireless medium due to the accessibility from nearby third parties [2]. In this poster, we propose the use of near field communication (NFC) to address the problem. To the best of our knowledge, using NFC for medical implant communication has not been attempted so far.

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