MEDICAL INSTRUMENTATION MODULES FOR THE PALM COMPUTER

This project will create plug-in modules that enable handheld Palm computers as medical devices for data acquisition. In particular, the phase I effort will develop and demonstrate the feasibility of a blood pressure module. The Springboard expansion slot on Handspring Corporation Palm handheld computers allows many peripheral devices to be used with system. Current modules include wireless network modems, GPS systems, image capturing, and Bluetooth radio modules. It is estimated that in the medical marketplace for handhelds, by 2004, 20 percent of US physicians will be using handheld devices in their practice. There are presently no medical instrumentation modules for Palm devices. The phase II will expand on the blood pressure module with the development of other plug-in modules such as a pulse oximeter, electrocardiograph, glucose monitor, and spirometer. The creation of medical instruments for the highly portable Palm platform reduces the price of medical devices because the back-end processing and user interface elements of the devices need not be created for each individual device. Additional benefits are gained, including a reduction in transcription errors, by having the data from the medical devices directly loaded to a database over a wireless network.