I must admit I'm getting a bit flabby myself - not so much opportunity these days to get out and about. Perhaps the role of "Fat Controller" running a medical device network might suit me though.
Yeah, I like the idea of sensor-fusion, Richard. That could be phase two (and our second million)! But I think it’s us who will have to do the interface embedding, here, Mate. That’s the essence of the Box!
Actually, as part of my research and project for my MSc, I had my go at designing & building a box to "retrofit" current visual and audible alarm standards to existing patient monitoring that didn't meet the standards. It's not easy.
The design of an embedded MP3 player and stereo audio system to store the "novel" alarm sounds, a diagnostic display (including decision making, etc) and a robust communications system with the patient monitor using microcontrollers is feasible but difficult.
The "sensor-fusion" aspect, signal processing and establishing scales of severity and an alarm hierarchy that's required took a lot of thinking about and that only involved the device system alarms, heart rate and oxygen saturation with 2 adaptive alarm parameters for each. Difficult.
Best to come up with the specification of what's required and let some whizz-kid programmers and embeddded system designers come up with a finished product.
What we want is for manufacturers to provide a programming interface and memory within the medical device that allows us to adjust time and date, service intervals, store maintenance information and indicate diagnostics or failures.
