Open Communication Among Operating Room Equipment

ScienceDaily — "New research at the University of New Hampshire aims to make hospital operating rooms safer by opening the lines of communication between computerized hospital beds and blood pressure monitors."

"We’re trying to get pieces of equipment that don’t normally talk to each other to do so," says John LaCourse, professor of electrical and computer engineering at UNH. "We’re doing something that we feel is going to save peoples’ lives."

"In modern operating rooms, major pieces of equipment like beds and monitors are computerized, yet they lack the ability to share information with each other. When a bed is raised or lowered, for instance, a patient’s blood pressure fluctuates but the monitor, which is static, may give a faulty reading."