Indoor propagation of wireless LAN signals in a hospital and electromagnetic compatibilty implications

The rapid growth of wireless communication associated with usage of cellular phones, PDAs, pagers and other wireless devices has been phenomenal. Yet such growth has not occurred within healthcare, in part due to concerns about electromagnetic interference (EMI) potentially causing malfunction of life-critical medical equipment. Interference with critical-care medical equipment can threaten patient safety [1, 2, 3], and as a result many hospitals have banned cellular telephones, and other wireless sources.