OpenMDC: an open-source framework for medical device communication.

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Medical Informatics
• Health Technology

Background:

• Bedside medical devices often use proprietary data output formats.
• Integrating data from diverse medical equipment into a unified system is challenging.
• Existing solutions for medical device data acquisition can be costly and complex.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop an extensible, open-source framework for acquiring data from bedside medical devices.
• To enable low-cost, plug-and-play data collection from devices with RS-232 serial output.
• To demonstrate the system's feasibility with a widely used medical ventilator.

Main Methods:

• Designed a framework utilizing inexpensive hardware for signal conversion.
• Implemented RS-232 to Universal Serial Bus (USB) data translation.
• Developed a prototype system for testing and validation.

Main Results:

• Successfully created a functional, open-source data collection framework.
• Achieved low-cost data acquisition through affordable hardware.
• Demonstrated effective system integration with Puritan-Bennett 840 ventilators.

Conclusions:

• The developed framework offers a cost-effective and flexible solution for bedside medical device data collection.
• The system facilitates seamless device communication via USB.
• This approach has the potential to improve data accessibility and integration in clinical settings.