The Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation is asking federal officials to set aside additional bandwidth for healthcare providers, saying the spectrum is needed to ensure the safe use of "life-critical" wireless devices.
The AAMI, a non-profit launched in 1967 with a membership of more than 7,000, has asked the Federal Communications Commission to give "priority access" to healthcare facilities as it seeks to increase available spectrum in the 5 GHz band to reduce anticipated congestion.
The FCC issued a notice of proposed rulemaking in February, asking for comments on a proposal to make up to 195 megahertz of unlicensed spectrum available for 'Gigabit Wi-Fi' uses, or ultra high-speed, high-capacity Wi-Fi.
According to the AAMI, healthcare applications operate primarily on the unlicensed 2.4 and 5 GHz bands but aren’t protected for interference due to congestion, thereby posing a risk of loss of connectivity as more and more users compete for available spectrum.
"To make new spectrum available on the same basis may simply extend the same problems arising as the new bands become popular and crowded," AAMI President Mary K. Logan said in the AAMI's comments to the FCC. "We therefore recommend that a subset of the new bands be made available with service rules that allow healthcare prioritized access."
In making these recommendations, the AAMI pointed out that the dedicated bandwidth would only be used "under very restricted circumstances and within a very restricted geographic area of a healthcare delivery organization."
"The use of wireless devices in a healthcare setting has increased and is continuing to increase at a rapid pace. While useful for specific situations, the spectrum currently dedicated for healthcare applications is either heavily used or does not lend itself to widespread healthcare medical device or IT uses," Logan said. "Allowing healthcare vicinity-based priority access to one of the five GHz U-NII bands under discussion will provide much-needed spectrum for medical devices to operate in a managed interference environment. We believe this will foster and support innovative technology solutions leading to improved patient outcomes."
This isn’t the first time the FCC has been asked to set aside spectrum for mobile medical uses.
Last September, the FCC set aside spectrum in the range of 2360-2400 megahertz for medical body-area networks, or MBANs, with the 2360-2390 MHz range restricted to indoor use. That ruling was made to enable wearable sensors to send and receive non-voice data without interference from Wi-Fi or other devices.
