A look at the embedded medical market

The future for embedded developers in the medical market couldn’t be brighter. Opportunities exist at every edge of the processing space.

Robert Cravotta, Embedded Insights -- EDN, October 22, 2010

Embedded systems development has long been associated with terms such as smaller, faster, smarter, and connected, while the costs for these systems continue to fall. These attributes also nicely sum up the trends affecting the medical market. Medical devices have been shrinking from room- or cart-sized devices to briefcase- or handheld-sized devices. They are performing more tasks and doing it more quickly and accurately than ever before. Smart devices are allowing casual users to proactively diagnose and treat conditions in their home that used to require a trip to the doctor's office or hospital. On top of that, medical devices are becoming connected tools as they begin to incorporate communication capabilities that allow them to interoperate with other devices.

Medical devices are shrinking in size because semiconductor companies are integrating more capabilities in embedded processors that result in designs with less hardware and that fit in a smaller footprint. Medical devices that target the home user, including blood pressure and blood glucose meters, are providing the large volume applications that make the integration effort worthwhile. These highly integrated embedded processors deliver more computer processing at a lower power envelope than before that enables developers to incorporate higher levels of accuracy and the ability to accurately recognize more operating contexts.

Part of what makes these devices smarter is an evolving set of sensors that deliver higher precision and accuracy. However, making devices smarter increases the complexity of the software development. This highlights the second half of the highly integrated embedded processor: bundled software drivers and complete modules that help offload some of this rising complexity from developers. The bundled components simplify supporting user-interface issues such as the growing popularity of touch interfaces as well as supporting connectivity capabilities such as USB and wireless communication.

Smarter devices enable casual users to play a more active role in their healthcare. Casual users are able to perform more self-monitoring of their health. Some monitoring devices are able to separately track measurements, such as blood pressure, for several users. A growing class of devices goes a step beyond monitoring the patient's health and can automatically adjust and deliver measured doses of medicine or insulin. Emerging versions of devices that deliver drugs take the form of smart patches or bandages. As a result, the entire device, including its battery power supply, needs to be small enough so as to not interfere with the user's normal activities.

Smarter devices enable users to be more proactive about their personal health. Users can continuously monitor their blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen saturation, glucose levels, temperature, weight, and respiration and with the right equipment, seamlessly transmit that information from their home to their doctor. This requires multiple devices to be able to work with one another to perform a larger system function beyond just measuring a vital sign of the user.

Broad interoperability is an emerging priority for health devices and for the medical and information technology industries. Hospitals are moving toward using devices from different vendors that are interoperable and that use a uniform user interface. Vendors are selling complete solutions that include not only the diagnostic equipment but also data storage and communication software. Implementations for medical networking technologies are developing around Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB, and ZigBee.

The Continua Health Alliance is an industry coalition that includes more than 200 companies that span technology, medical device, and health care delivery that are collaborating to establish a system for interoperable personal health solutions. The goal of the alliance is to develop design guidelines that enable the medical device supply chain to take advantage of interoperable sensors, home networks, telehealth platforms, and health and wellness services.

The Continua Health Alliance Design Guidelines contain references to standards and specifications for ensuring interoperability of devices. It further clarifies these standards and specifications by reducing options or by adding a feature missing in the underlying standard or specification. The guidelines are available free to members. Nonmembers may purchase the Version One design guidelines.

As devices support connectivity, they need to provide security and privacy as called for by the HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) Privacy and Security Rules. In fact, how well devices can meet the security and encryption requirements at the target price points may be a pacing factor for the adoption of these devices by the market. Embedded processors targeting medical applications are increasingly offering hardware and software support for encryption, including on-chip AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) accelerators.

The future for embedded developers in the medical market couldn't be brighter. There are opportunities at every edge of the processing space. The smallest microcontrollers have traction in disposable, implantable, swallow-able, and wearable devices. The highest-performance microprocessors, DSPs and FPGAs provide the needed compute power for the latest imaging technologies. Mid- to high-range microprocessors fill in the space to deliver the user interface and network connectivity. In fact, today's health solutions likely include a little of each type of processor to deliver the best balance of size, power, and price just like any other embedded system.