FCC Designates Health IT Bandwidth

Hospital patients soon will be more comfortable, and perhaps have a better chance of recovery, thanks to a Federal Communications Commission decision to allocate bandwidth to low-power wideband networks that wirelessly monitor patients.

The FCC decided on Thursday to designate bandwidth for Medical Body Area Networks (MBAN), which are still being developed. The networks will transmit data from remote sensors attached to patients to control devices, according to a news release from the FCC. MBANs will “free patients from cumbersome cables that tether them to their hospital bed” and “provide a cost-effective way to monitor every patient in a health-care institution,” the FCC says.