New WFA White Paper: The Role of Wi-Fi in Enabling Digital Health

Wi-Fi is a near-ubiquitous technology that is playing a dominant role in making the digital health vision a reality. The demand for wireless connectivity in medical settings continues to increase as the benefits of wearable and mobile medical devices are realized. Wi-Fi technology enables reduced cable clutter, fewer accessories requiring infection control, increased patient comfort via smaller wearable devices, uninterrupted monitoring outside the hospital, and reduced recovery time by enabling patients to ambulate within the care area and still be monitored. In the digital health ecosystem, wirelessly enabled wearable devices benefit patients and clinicians alike, allowing patients to be monitored in real-time, improving patient care and helping caregivers to focus less time on administrative tasks. While Wi-Fi can provide a flexible, secure, and interoperable solution for wireless connectivity, suitable for critical medical devices, along with these benefits comes the challenges of establishing standards. From security to RF infrastructure, hospital administrators must make informed decisions.

Laird, in collaboration with other industry experts from the Wi-Fi Alliance’s Healthcare Marketing Task Group, have crafted the “Wireless Wearables: The Role of Wi-Fi in Enabling Digital Health” white paper which addresses common questions among product developers, integrators, and end users looking to leverage Wi-Fi technology in their wireless wearable devices. Readers will gain insight from industry experts on systems architectures, WLAN infrastructure design and deployment, as well as device level feature support (e.g. device provisioning), appropriate Wi-Fi certifications and radio/antenna integration. The white paper also defines and outlines wireless wearables within the digital health ecosystem, typical radio frequency (RF) environments and use cases for wireless wearables as well as associated challenges and best practices, and relevant and associated Wi-Fi certification programs to deliver the optimal user experience through Wi-Fi connectivity.

Download the full white paper, here.