New IEEE 11073 standards for interoperable, networked point-of-care Medical Devices

Surgical procedures become more and more complex and the number of medical devices in an operating room (OR) increases continuously. Today's vendor-dependent solutions for integrated ORs are not able to handle this complexity. They can only form isolated solutions. Furthermore, high costs are a result of vendor-dependent approaches. Thus we present a service-oriented device communication for distributed medical systems that enables the integration and interconnection between medical devices among each other and to (medical) information systems, including plug-and-play functionality. This system will improve patient's safety by making technical complexity of a comprehensive integration manageable. It will be available as open standards that are part of the IEEE 11073 family of standards. The solution consists of a service-oriented communication technology, the so called Medical Devices Profile for Web Services (MDPWS), a Domain Information & Service Model, and a binding between the first two mechanisms. A proof of this concept has been done with demonstrators of real world OR devices.