Background

Medical equipment management plays an important role in hospitals. While the coordination of information technology and medical equipment management brings greater efficiency for hospital management, it also sets higher requirements for medical equipment manufacturers.

Digital management of small and medium sized medical equipment is receiving growing attention. Despite their large numbers and much configuration, most of the machines are managed manually and faced with problems including delayed updates for material use, unusable old parts, breakdown, etc. which greatly harms efficiency.

InHand Networks offers cost-effective edge computing gateway IG500 and helps medical equipment manufacturers with solutions for data collection monitoring. In the solution, data from equipment are collected and pre-processed on the edge. With support for Python secondary development, the solution enables users to analyze and upload data according to actual needs of hospitals. It can also monitor the operation status of the equipment in real time, achieve real-time alert, online fault diagnosis and analysis, remote fault location, operation log diagnosis, material consumption analysis, parts status monitoring and preventive maintenance.

Solution

Most small and medium medical equipment (e.g. blood analyzer, syringe pump, monitor, ventilator, etc.) is movable. Take the blood analyzer as an example. When medical workers put the blood tube into the blood analysis line, the monitoring computer records the blood data and tube usage. Being Python programmable, the IG500 can upload data to the cloud according to the hospital’s actual need, monitor material use in real time and ensure stable operation of the equipment.

Meanwhile, IG500 collects and monitors data recorded by the computer via the serial port. It can analyze and process data on the edge, clean and filter useless data, make quick response to emergencies. It is also able to store data when disconnected, intermittently get connected to the cloud, relieving workload of the cloud and optimizing transmission.

Through real-time monitoring of the operation status of small and medium sized medical equipment, the IG500 is capable of real-time alerts, online diagnosis and fault analysis, remote fault location, operation log diagnosis, material consumption analysis, parts status monitoring and preventive maintenance, ensuring smooth operation of medical equipment and making profits for manufacturers.

Advantages

● With Python development and powerful edge computing capabilities, users can customize smart logic processing for local data, relieving load on the cloud

● Operation on the edge, greater security and reliability for business data

● Breakpoint resume supported, built-in 256MB FLASH, and Micro-SD card supported

● Multiple industrial protocols supported, including Modbus TCP, Modbus RTU and ISO on TCP

● InHand “cloud + edge” solution greatly shortens testing periods and reduces workload for deployment

● Data are transmitted via MQTT IoT protocol, outperforming traditional VPN

● Comprehensive security protection, including encryption for data transmission, firewalls and other strengthened security mechanisms, freeing customers of security concerns

● Easy preventive maintenance, less downtime, better performance