BLE Technology In Healthcare – Key Features & Advantages

We live in an age of mobile networks and connections. One revolution that has changed the way we connect and transmit things is the invention of Bluetooth. You have heard and used Bluetooth or BLE technology to connect your iPhone to your AirPods or your favorite music program to a speaker.

In its most basic form, Bluetooth is a technology that allows a wireless exchange of data between devices over a short distance. 

What Is Bluetooth?

Bluetooth is the wireless connection between your phone and the device to which it is attached. This technique allows data to be sent over small distances without cables. In technical terms, Bluetooth is a technology that is a frequency-hopping radio technology that transfers data packets in the 2.4 GHz spectrum.

These packets are exchanged across one of the 79 Bluetooth channels. Bluetooth-connected devices are generally secure and resistant to attack. This is because they work on various frequencies, and the devices switch between them hundreds of times every second.

How To Use BLE Technology In Your Projects?

The Internet of Things (IoT) technology industry has expanded to the point where it is now the king of technology in every business and industry. Players who use this technology and BLE, a technology born out of the same, to develop their greatest products will significantly advantage over their competitors.

The most popular IoT applications are transportation/ automotive, healthcare, smart home appliances, retail, and wearables. Big players have already set their place in the most profitable consumer industries, but new entrants still have a lot of room to grow. 

The Advantage Of BLE Technology Over Wi-Fi

• Privacy 

When a person activates their Wi-Fi connection, the device will be on the search for a Wi-Fi network at all times. Retailers benefit from this since it allows them to follow their clients and send them special offers and discounts.

It can even track their physical activities down to the minute. Because there is no user intervention, Wi-Fi technology does not need to solicit the consumer’s permission to do this.

You must disable Wi-Fi on your smartphone if you wish to be rid of it. To use BLE technology, users must first enable Bluetooth on their phones and allow location detection. You can choose to get notifications in-store or indoors.

Users may prefer a system that provides them with more privacy and control over the data they publish in public. Hence, BLE provides a higher level of privacy. 

• Speed

BLE is better for transferring small amounts of data at 1 Mbps, such as temperature sensor readings, acceleration information, GPS locations, etc. BLE is not designed for transferring data to a server in real time.

If real-time data is necessary, it must be sent through a dedicated gateway. The 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard can transport data up to 1.3 Gbps, making it perfect for larger files and data.

Yes, speed is affected by various factors, including the provider to which your user chooses to subscribe. Wi-Fi Direct offers up to ten times the data transfer speed of Bluetooth Classic. 

• Deployment Costs 

BLE and Wi-Fi deployments need businesses to plan where their devices will be placed. It will also be determined by the software used in these gadgets. BLE is less expensive, self-contained, and can run for over two years on a single battery, depending on usage.

There is no need to configure anything. Router setups are required for Wi-Fi and must be connected to a power supply. The router and, of course, the manufacturer also influence the cost.

Why Do You Need BLE In Your Projects?

Before BLE-enabled devices can send data to each other, they must establish a communication channel. You must specify numerous permissions in your manifest file to use the BLE APIs. Once your app has been granted Bluetooth permission, it must access the Bluetooth Adapter and determine whether Bluetooth is enabled on the device.

If Bluetooth is enabled, the device will search for BLE devices in the area. The capabilities of the BLE device are learned by connecting to the GATT server on the BLE device once it has been found. Data is often transferred with the connected device supported by the available services and characteristics once a connection has been established.

In projects centralized by Android, BLE is the way to go! In the major role, Android provides built-in platform support for Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and APIs that apps can use to identify devices, query for services, and send data.

Some common use cases of the same area transferring tiny bits of data between nearby devices and using proximity sensors to provide a personalized experience based on the user’s present position. Compared to traditional Bluetooth, BLE is meant to use substantially less power.

This enables apps to get in touch with BLE devices that require more power, such as proximity sensors, pulse monitors, and fitness trackers. Bluetooth technology has influenced our lives in various ways, including wireless headphones, cordless computer mice, and even wearable fitness bands that send data to our Smartphones.

While various types of wireless technology have been utilized in medical equipment and healthcare for decades. Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is a breakthrough that revolutionizes how the healthcare industry experiences wireless communication.

BLE consumes much less battery power than standard Bluetooth technology while providing a stable and dependable connection. BLE is perfect for medical applications because of its features, low power consumption, and low cost.

Advantage Of BLE Technology In The Healthcare Industry

Even though people immediately regard the human body and mind as being apart from the hard machinery of science and engineering, the healthcare business has always been an early user of new technologies.

The pattern of rapid technology acceptance has continued from the earliest surgical equipment and prosthetic limbs to more contemporary advancements such as MRI scans, heart pacemakers, and wearable monitoring gadgets.

Apart from gears and gadgets, BLE also helps the healthcare industry in numerous other ways: 

• Connected Monitoring

While paramedics treat a patient in an ambulance on the way to the hospital, the defibrillator can relay real-time information about the patient’s status to a gateway within the vehicle using Bluetooth low energy. This data is automatically sent to the cloud service of the defibrillator maker.

This service is available for hospitals to subscribe to be better prepared when a patient arrives at the emergency room. A similar real-time data collection approach may be employed with various devices in ambulances.

• Connected Medication 

Patients in hospitals are frequently attached to a variety of medical gadgets. Simply eliminating wires has significant advantages, such as saving time for personnel, lowering the chance of error, and improving patient comfort.

ECG monitors and blood pressure sensors can wirelessly transmit vital sign data to the hospital’s central monitoring systems. In a typical hospital use, a nurse scans a patient’s wrist barcode using a lightweight handheld scanner, which then connects the patient’s infusion pump over Bluetooth to identify the patient.

The infusion pump may then administer the necessary fluids and timed medication to that patient with oversight from the hospital’s central monitoring system, input from wearable monitors on the patient, and other protections.

• Connected Home-health 

By transferring key portions of patient care out of hospital wards and into the home, the Internet of Things allows for significant cost savings, increased efficiency, and improved patient comfort. Patients’ health can now be tracked no matter where they are.

Medical weight scales, heart rate monitors, and blood pressure monitors are monitoring equipment that can track health and warn patients, families, and caregivers of changes in vital signs or missing medications.

Bluetooth low energy’s low power, robustness, and ease of use make it ideal for connecting several monitoring devices to a local hub, such as a smartphone that uses longer-range communications technology to relay data over the internet for caregivers’ analysis securely. These devices have the ability to run for years on a single little battery.

• Low Energy Consumption 

Since the introduction of BLE in 2010, battery-powered devices that can communicate modest quantities of data to local user interfaces, such as tablets and smartphones, have saved energy.

Blood glucose monitors, asthma inhalers, and implanted cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) are a few medical devices that use this technology to improve patient condition monitoring and care.

Because of BLE’s power economy, these gadgets can run for years on little coin-cell batteries. Bluetooth LE’s low-power capabilities can help meet compliance standards for environmental sensors and patient room monitoring.

• Connected Inventory 

Another appealing application is real-time blood bank monitoring. Blood must be kept at a specific temperature range, or it will be unsafe to use. Each blood bag has a small reusable tracer with a Bluetooth low-energy module to track the temperature.

The sensor is programmed to wake up when it detects physical movement and spends most of its life sitting quietly on the shelf in sleep mode. It uses an LED to signal the authenticity of the blood and Bluetooth low energy to announce its presence.

The acquired data is subsequently sent to a smartphone or a Bluetooth gateway. Based on the documented temperatures saved in the sensor, a customized app can compute the remaining storage time for the blood.

Bluetooth low energy is appropriate for this use case since it is supported by smartphones and tablets and delivers dependable wireless connectivity while consuming the least power.

Bluetooth low energy can also be utilized to fast-track blood bag position. Other inventory applications that track other inventory, equipment, and personnel have similar use cases.