AHA alerts Congress to safety concerns with FCC proposal

The AHA today shared with Congress its concern that the Federal Communications Commission may act Aug. 6 to permit unlicensed devices to operate on the same frequencies as hospitals’ Wireless Medical Telemetry Service. “The AHA requests a postponement of at least three months in the FCC’s consideration of these rules so that interested stakeholders can continue to work on a compromise that will ensure patient safety is not affected by unlicensed devices operating on the same bandwidth hospitals use for patient monitoring,” the association said in a statement submitted for a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing on FCC oversight. The creation of the WMTS in 2000 “was a direct result of concerns raised over how electromagnetic interference with wireless medical telemetry equipment can affect patient safety,” AHA wrote, noting that there are now more than 360,000 WMTS patient monitors in U.S. hospitals. AHA and its American Society for Healthcare Engineering shared their concerns with the FCC in a July 21 letter, included in today’s statement.