From early wireless to Everest

Medical information has been transmitted using wireless technologies for almost 80 years. A "wired wireless" electronic stethoscope was developed by the U.S. Army Signal Corps in the early 1920's, for potential use in ship-to-shore transmission of cardiac sounds. [Winters SR. Diagnosis by wireless. Scientific American June 11, 1921, p. 465] Today, wireless is used in a wide range of medical applications and at sites from transoceanic air flights to offshore oil platforms to Mt. Everest. 'Wireless LANs' are often used in medical environments. Typically, nurses and physicians in a hospital or clinic use hand-held "wireless thin client" pen computers that exchange patient information and images with the hospital server. Numerous companies, such as Fujitsu (article below) and Cruise Technologies (www.cruisetech.com) manufacture handheld pen-entry computers. One company, LXE, integrates radio-frequency (RF) enhanced hand-held computers specifically designed for production use within a wireless LAN (www.lxe.com). Other companies (Proxim, Symbol, and others) supply the wireless RF LAN infrastructure for the enterprise. Unfortunately, there have been problems with widespread deployment of wireless LANs. Perhaps the biggest impediment has been the lack of standards. Although an international standard (IEEE 802.11) was adopted in 1997, most wireless LAN products still are not compatible with the equipment of competing companies. A problem with the current standard for LAN adapters is that throughput is limited to 3 Mbps--compared to at least 10 Mbps, and often 100 Mbps, in a hard-wired Ethernet LAN. An II Mbps standard is due out in the next year or so, but it will be at least 2 years before standards-compliant products are available. This story profiles some of the ways that wireless is being used to overcome gaps in terrestrial and within-enterprise communication.