My interest in remote monitoring and the focus of this blog is primarily on wearable or implanted devices that support chronically ill or elderly patients. I link remote monitoring with remote patient management. I sometimes drift into the realm of wearable fitness devices because of the similarity in technology. However I think what really differentiates wearable fitness devices and medical remote monitoring devices is reliability, particularly when it comes to insuring that medical remote monitoring devices have a reliable source of power -- constant and steady.
Reliable and constant power is a major concern to any engineer who's designing a medical monitoring device. So this article should be of interest to those involved with the design, development and testing of medical remote monitoring devices.
Here is the link to the article: http://www.electronicdesign.com/power/low-power-mantra-rings-louder-next-gen-medical-wearables
Here's a quote from the conclusion of the article:
"Wearable devices represent the current and future wave in medical care. They hold promise in multiple areas from real-time patient monitoring to drug delivery, but the small space available for a battery imposes strict constraints on the designer, particularly in the area of power consumption."
Harvesting Power
When I was the principal investigator and Chief Technologist of a company focused on research and development of mobile and wearable devices, we were extremely concerned with power and reliable and constant sources for power for mobile devices. One of the ideas we began to pioneer was the ability to harvest power from the environment, from bioelectric sources such as people. I mention this because the article discusses this issue and some of the promising technologies and those interested in this area should find this section interesting.
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