FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, who proposed the additional protections, said the extended buffer zones would remain in place throughout the agency's review of the waiver.
Reaction
In a statement, AHA Executive Vice President Rick Pollack said the adopted rules could negatively affect patients.
He said, "These unlicensed devices may cause interference with wireless monitoring, preventing doctors and nurses from receiving vital information" (FierceHealthIT, 8/6). He added that AHA is concerned "that if the rules ... are left unchanged, patient safety could be compromised" (AHA News, 8/6).
AHA also noted that FCC's compromise to grant buffer-zone extensions does not take into account that hospitals often lack the expertise to know when to submit a waiver ("Morning eHealth," Politico, 8/7).
Prior to the vote, Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) also expressed concerns about the use of the channel for unlicensed devices. In a letter to FCC, the senators asked for a three-month delay, saying it is "imperative that the commission establish fully adequate technical rules for sharing, as those rules will impact the safety and use of critical medical monitoring technology for hospitals" (AHA News, 8/5).
http://www.ihealthbeat.org/articles/2015/8/7/fcc-oks-use-of-unlicensed-devices-on-patient-monitoring-frequency
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FCC vote allows unlicensed devices to operate on same frequency as medical
monitors
AHA raises interference concerns before, after hearing
Dan Bowman, Fierce Health IT August 6, 2015
Unlicensed devices will be allowed to operate on the same frequency as wireless medical telemetry service systems for cardiac and fetal monitoring, after the Federal Communications Commission voted to modernize rules to "accommodate growing demand for ... innovation."
Despite protests from the American Hospital Association, three U.S. senators and 16 members of the House, the FCC insisted at its Aug. 6 hearing that unlicensed TV White Space devices--such as garage door openers, cordless phones and Bluetooth technologies--will not interfere with patient monitoring technology that operates on Channel 37.
"Wireless medical telemetry devices and radio astronomy services will continue to have interference protection on Channel 37," FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said at the hearing. "Unlicensed users also gain access to Channel 37 in areas where these other two are not using it."
The new rules were adopted based on the mindset that following the upcoming incentive auction, white space frequencies in the television band likely will be more limited.
While voting in favor of the new rules, FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai said he shares concerns expressed by the AHA and members of Congress. He proposed that whenever a WMTS facility determines that designated protection zones are not adequate to prevent harmful interference, those zones should be automatically extended up to three times their current size, following a licensee's filing of a waiver request.
"Those extended zones will remain in place until the FCC can adjudicate the merits of the request," Pai said.
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