Wireless Transfusion Supervision and analysis using embedded system

Infusion pumps have a widespread use in the health care and Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of each hospital. The use of infusion pumps is advocated over manual flow control system on the basis of assuring precise and accurate delivery of prescribed fluid volumes over a specified time and to help in better nursing management. Transfusion speed of the pump must be changed as per the patients need and alarm indication for various abnormalities must be given. Manually setting all parameters is very time-consuming and a mistake could mean a high risk for the patients. Thus there is an obvious need of a system that can take care of this from central room. The developed system is a network which consists of a host computer (PC), transfusion monitors and interconnection mechanisms. The host computer manages the basic data of patients, transfusion information as well as controls the transfusion monitors through a wireless network to regulate the transfusion speed and give an alarm at the abnormality. A Graphical User Interface (GUI) is developed in Visual Basic (VB), which analyses the infusion history. The communication between the PC and the infusion pump occurs via a wireless network using ZigBee. The history report is generated in MS Excel format, which can be referred by the Physician. The developed system can be efficiently used for remote supervision of transfusion monitors in the ICU by hospital staff.