Clarinet Systems Leads the Market for Infrared-based PDA Network Access in the Healthcare Industry

Clarinet Systems was the first company to envision and pioneer PDA-based infrared networking solutions for the healthcare market in 1999. Since then, Clarinet Systems has become well known in the healthcare & hospital, medical school & health sciences library markets for its EthIR LAN infrared (IR) wireless systems, which provide network access for physicians, clinicians, staff, faculty, and students for both Palm and PocketPC PDAs. Virtually all Palm and PocketPC PDA’s on the market have built-in infrared ports. Leading healthcare software providers such as McKesson, Siemens Medical Systems, MercuryMD, Cerner, Patientkeeper, and others, all recommend or resell EthIR LAN systems for the PDA/server software applications that they provide to the healthcare market. By the end of 2003, over 200 hospitals, or virtually all hospitals in the US that operate PDA programs, were using EthIR LAN systems for the PDA network access required for these leading healthcare software providers’ applications.

As compared to other RF wireless solutions (such as 802.11b), the infrared technology utilized by Clarinet Systems EthIR LAN systems has the advantages of not interfering with existing medical equipment while providing a highly secure network connection without concern for data leakage and with little impact on battery consumption. Clarinet’s compact infrared network access point "EthIR Beam®", which is a component of EthIR LAN, can be conveniently located at the patient’s bedside, a staff lounge or a nurse's workstation. Doctors and RNs can then download patient statistics, lab data, prescriptions, billing information, etc. into their PDA device through the built-in infrared port to help them more quickly and efficiently perform their jobs. The infrared technology enables network connectivity for PDA’s without expensive add-on software and hardware and, more importantly, provides an open and secure HIPAA compliant solution along with future expansion to the IEEE P1073.3.3 Draft Standard for Medical Device Communications.

While 115Kbps Serial Infrared (SIR) transceivers are the standard option found on most PDAs today, there are some PDAs equipped with 4Mbps Fast Infrared (FIR) transceivers, which can be used without any cost increase to the end-user. From the end-user perspective, physicians have a constantly increasing need to sync more patients’ information faster.

Using an advance release of the new FIR-equipped HP iPAQ hx4700 provided by HP, Clarinet's testing confirmed that, at 4 Mbps connectivity speeds, FIR significantly reduces the synchronization time between PDAs and network servers by a factor of 10 or more times over SIR (115 Kbps) in all applications in which infrared networking is used. For example, in Clarinet's tests, a 1 MB file transfer through an EthIR LAN switch was completed in 10 seconds with the HP iPAQ hx4700 FIR-equipped PDA as compared to 112 seconds with a typical SIR-equipped Pocket PC PDA available in the market today. Similar enhancements to file transfer speeds were also seen in tests conducted with the FIR-equipped ASUS A620 PocketPC PDA. http://www.clarinetsys.com/en/pda-performance.htm provides helpful references for selecting PDAs to achieve better networking performance for healthcare applications.

Note:

1. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) mandates regulations that govern privacy, security, and electronic transaction standards for health care information.

2. IEEE P1073.3.3 draft standard defines mobile and portable "point-of-care" clinical lab instruments (e.g. glucose meters) and other medical devices that require intermittent "point-and-shoot" connectivity to a data repository. Clarinet Systems helped contribute content for the standard along with a multitude of other companies such as GE Medical and Agilent.