Medical Device Communication Ports & Application

In Modern Medical Technology Environment, Hospitals demand Various Communication Integrations to streamline the process of Treating Patients. This require Integration of Equipments used in Various Departments. Communication of Medical Equipments with other devices which are made through various communication Protocols.

Technically this is made possible through various Connectivity ports like USB, Ethernet, Serial Ports, Parallel Ports, BNC, HDMI, and various Communication protocols which are developed specifically for Medical Devices.

In this decade of Hospital Automation, Biomedical Engineers also need to have knowledge and expertise in Networking standards, communication ports and protocols for Medical Devices.

Communication Ports:

A Communication Port is an interfacing adapter through which peripherals or devices establish connection between each other. Usually Port has a slot or socket that is internally connected to the main board of the device. A connector is the unique end of a plug, jack, or the edge of a card that connects into a port. Each port and connector has their unique shape and sizes based on their version, types designed though various enhancements just like our Micro USB and USB Type C that we use daily for our mobile phones.

Earlier days there were only two types of communication methods viz. Serial and Parallel modes. Depending on the requirement and accessibility manufacturer has to select mode of communication for that device. But in these days there are many modes of communication and different standards, networking protocols designed to serve multiple purposes.

In Medical Device Industry these methods and ports play key role in controlling device features as well as data transfer. There are many types of ports used with different designs among which few of most common ones are:

I. USB

II. Ethernet

III. Serial Communication Port

IV. Parallel Communication Port

V. Display Ports

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USB:

USB or Universal Serial Bus is a connection standard and which was first introduced in the year 1996 with version USB1.0 and at that time connectivity speed was just 1.5~12 Mbps but, recently in the year 2019 new version USB 4 was released with speed 40 Gbps along with many additional features.

Traditional USB Trident Logo Latest Certified USB Logo followed by version

Generally USB has four contact pins inside and used Foolproof design ensuring proper contacts and polarity of port with connector pin. But USB 3.0 has more pins and additional features.

In Medical Device Industry USB plays key role in tethering various I/O devices and connecting various storage, networking devices. Mainly in most of the medical devices we can see that USB is widely used for barcode readers which scans and gives patient information from blood sample or medical record file to the concerned device for creating test result

For example, Optical Barcode readers are connected ECG Machine through USB port. ECG Technician scans Patient ID Barcode before starting ECG Procedure. In order to Fetch Patient Information from Hospital Server, ECG Machine needs to have an Ethernet connectivity. By doing this Patient information is collected from server while scanning the barcode and at the end of Diagnosis, ECG report is send to the Server. The specific Doctor can view this Report through his computer using a software provided by ECG Machine manufacturer.

Ethernet:

Ethernet is one of the prominent port used in networking. This was first introduced in the year 1980 and later IEEE standardized it and created protocol IEEE 802.3 in the year 1983. It is also popular by name LAN port because of its usage in Local computer Network.

In Medical Device Industry Ethernet Port is used in providing network access to medical device for giving patient information and result data to the connected computer and share it to local server installed in hospital from which doctors can access that data anytime on demand.

Additionally, In MRI or CT scan Equipment we can see that dedicated ethernet port which is provided for DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) an international standard developed to transmit, store, retrieve, print, process, and display medical imaging information. Recent development in DICOM involves storing multiple-frame clips of scanned images which is now evolved for capturing video too.

Earlier days CT or MRI equipment records information in standalone operating computer and processing the scanned result information is very difficult because of numerous imaging formats developed by various manufacturers, But in 1993 DICOM standard was developed and it became very popular by revolutionizing healthcare systems. DICOM is an international standard developed by American College of Radiology (ACR) and National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA). Although they created first version of this standard in 1985, but lack of internet resources and technology in many diagnostic centers and hospitals made it less popular.

But later because of IT revolution and its impact on Healthcare Industry DICOM was more enhanced and upgraded for better processing of biomedical image from the scanned result and created an universal and unique imaging format. DICOM uses normal ethernet port and dedicated TCP/IP address to communicate. But later on storing and identification of image, archiving the images from various department and its classification became very difficult and it led to development of technology called PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication System) which provided convenient access to images from multiple modalities.

Electronic images and reports are transmitted digitally via PACS; this eliminates the need to manually file, retrieve, or transport film jackets, the folders used to store and protect X-ray film. The universal format for PACS image storage and transfer is DICOM.

Similarly, HL7 (Health Level Seven) is also a standard which provides a framework and standards for the exchange, integration, sharing, and retrieval of electronic health information which is useful in transfer of clinical information and patient health record data between software applications used by various healthcare providers.

Serial communication Port:

Serial Port communication is a process of transferring data sequentially although at the time of development it was quite slow when compared to its counterpart. But, this is widely used because of its versatility and economic reasons. Most popular serial port standard we might have heard is RS232.

Recommended Standard or simply RS associated by its code is widely used in communications and these standards and codes are developed and set by Electronic Industries Association (EIA), In addition to RS232 there are RS422 and RS485 which were developed later having more connectivity speed and has capability for long distance communications. But RS232 was very popular, although it was introduced in the year 1960 because of its adaptability and versatility it was being used till date.

In Medical Device Industry RS232 is mostly used with DB9 connector because of its simple interface and immunity towards RF interference when compared with USB.

Most of the Laboratory Equipments like Bio-Chemistry Analyzer, Hematology Analyzer uses DB9 Port with communication standard RS232 to communicate with computer. Each Device Manufacturer uses their own developed software that is to be installed in computer and with the help of that software application technician can control device and perform testing of samples.

Still many medical devices use RS232 DB9 port for communicating with computer or other devices because of it RF interference immunity and cost effectiveness. But soon or later, all these RS232 ports will be superseded by USB.

Parallel communication Port:

A parallel communication port is a type of interface used for connecting peripherals and it sends multiple bits of data at once, as opposed to serial interfaces that send bits one at a time. To do this, parallel ports require multiple data lines in their cables and port connectors and tend to be larger than contemporary serial ports which only require one data line.

Parallel port applications are limited because of its design and manufacturing cost and also the size of port & connector made it difficult to create miniature version. Most common application of parallel port is for printing by dot-matrix printer.

DB25 was more popular port in parallel port communication. It was designed by Centronics, an IBM company and became most popular for printer purposes and even in medical industry it is still used for printing patient report data.

Display Port:

Display port represents port that helps to display data from a device. This is always an output port. There are few popular variants in display port and are as follows:

There is coaxial type port for displaying analog or SDI video signal called BNC (Bayonet Neill–Concelman) connection port. It was introduced in the year 1951. Because of its enhancement in technology causing various flexibility and conductivity factors it is still used worldwide in many applications. Mostly in medical sector we can see that in endoscopy equipments

Later in 1987 IBM designed VGA port which is purely analog based technology and it works with DE 15 connector which makes a proportion of RGB colours with Horizontal and Vertical Sync making an output image. It is mostly used as display monitors for various devices like X-Ray, CT for viewing the scanned image

But recently digital imaging is becoming more popular when compare to analog and the main difference comes with high resolution and multimedia features. First among the digital display port is DVI (Digital Visual Interface) which was developed in 1999.

Later in 2002 HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) came into existence and superseded all display technologies. As the name multimedia describes it can give Audio and Video as output signal.

Most of the Medical devices now a days are being equipped with HDMI ports for better picture resolution and sound feature. Mainly we can see OT and ICU rooms are equipped with large screen TV displays for better visibility of patient measured parameters and for giving alarm sound when any abnormal condition occurs.

In addition to these ports there are many patented and customized ports devised by the medical equipment manufacturer which allows user to communicate and control the device.