Discover New Opportunities for Point-of-Care

Medical device manufacturers are under increasing pressure to develop products that enable better patient treatment quality while being easier to maintain and scale. One way to address this need is through interoperability standards, such as DICOM, HL7 and FHIR. They require manufacturers to adopt a common language for health data to unlock the much-needed benefits of interoperable capabilities for medical devices and health systems to improve patient outcomes and care pathways.

What are current Limitations of Interoperability Standards?
DICOM, HL7, and FHIR have provided solutions for data exchange across IT systems, departments and hospitals. However, the standardization of device-to-device communication has not been given sufficient attention in recent years. There are a lot of devices in a hospital that may be physically close to each other but are not reaching their full potential because there is little or no integration between them. Device-to-device integration is almost non-existent, especially between different vendors. As a result, healthcare professionals face the challenge of operating multiple standalone and siloed products in their day-to-day work - which takes up valuable treatment time and is more prone to errors.

Can the emerging SDC Standard Close Interoperability Gaps?
The ISO/IEEE 11073 Service-oriented Device Connectivity (SDC) standard is an exciting development towards the interoperability of cross-vendor point-of-care medical devices. It provides an opportunity to design devices that better meet healthcare professionals' current and future needs.

• With secure and reliable cross-vendor communication, medical professionals and hospitals can benefit from more efficient automation, higher integration of devices at the point of care, and simplified integration of new devices into existing infrastructures.
• The SDC standard also improves compliance with clearly defined vendor responsibilities for adverse events. SDC-driven integration of cross-vendor devices enables the straightforward automation of otherwise manual steps. It consolidates device training efforts and reduces the general cognitive load on medical professionals.
• For medical device manufacturers, adopting the SDC standard also offers many benefits. It opens opportunities to introduce meaningful new features, differentiate and remain competitive in the market, and improve product development, maintenance efficiency and scalability.