In recent years, Bluetooth® innovations have seen wider deployment across commercial spaces, including retail, hospitality, tourism, and medical. Now — thanks to the technology’s global proliferation, method of signal transmission, low power consumption, and capability to create large-scale device networks — Bluetooth technology is in a prime position to further enhance the healthcare experience for patients and staff.

Connectivity at Every Level

From fitness trackers and smartwatches to glucose monitors and pulse oximeters, Bluetooth enabled wearables have taken over the connected device market. New waves of wearable innovations are creating greater demands for monitoring devices that can support medical diagnosis and care. As such, Bluetooth® technology is increasingly replacing wired equivalents in recovery suites, operating rooms, and ICUs.

New expansions of the technology significantly enhance security, increase signal range, and strengthen asset tracking and wayfinding capabilities, widening the use cases for Bluetooth devices in healthcare facilities. Using Bluetooth technology, patients and visitors can easily navigate through a large hospital or medical campus while healthcare staff can quickly locate hospital assets like essential medical equipment and patients in need of urgent care.

Frequency Hopping

Concerns about adding radio-frequency technology to an environment already saturated with wireless signals can cause healthcare facilities to take pause. Having too many devices transmitting on highly used channels can create radio interference and distortion. But Bluetooth® technology uses adaptive frequency hopping (AFH) to minimize its impact in environments laden with wireless signals.

Through AFH, a Bluetooth device can see which channels are in use and avoid those channels in the hop sequence. This reduces radio impedance and allows Bluetooth packets to transmit through the toughest interference sources, making it an ideal add-on to any wireless infrastructure.

Low Energy Consumption

Since the adoption of Bluetooth® Low Energy (LE) in 2010, Bluetooth technology has supported optimized energy consumption on battery-powered devices that can transfer small amounts of data to local user interfaces like tablets and smartphones. 

Healthcare spaces now employ a wide range of medical devices — such as blood glucose monitors, asthma inhalers, and implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICD) — that use this technology to improve patient condition monitoring and care. Thanks to the power efficiency of Bluetooth LE, these devices can operate for years on small, coin-cell batteries. The lower-power properties of Bluetooth LE also support compliance requirements for environmental sensors and patient room monitoring.

Large-Scale Device Networking

As the demand for comprehensive, secure wireless device networks continues to grow across commercial and industrial spaces, healthcare environments stand to benefit from the increased security, reliability, and scalability these facility-wide networks provide.

Bluetooth® mesh enables the creation of large-scale device networks and is ideally suited for control, monitoring, and automation systems that require tens, hundreds, or thousands of devices to reliably and securely communicate with one another. A Bluetooth mesh network can help healthcare facilities combat cost pressures, provide better patient care, and improve operational efficiencies by using Bluetooth technology to monitor patients and advance emergency services.

Download this white paper on Connectivity Choices for your Medical Device and IoMT Application and see how the latest wireless innovations are being used to support a wide range of healthcare applications.

FEATURED INFOGRAPHIC

Bluetooth Location Services

See 8 use cases for enhancing building efficiencies and creating a better visitor experience, discover new data that supports the latest trends and forecasts, and find out what’s driving the rapid adoption of location services solutions.

INSTANT DOWNLOAD

The Benefits of Bluetooth Networked Lighting Control

Lighting control systems feature an intelligent network of individually addressable and sensor-rich luminaires and…

Bluetooth® Mesh Feature Enhancements Summary

This paper summarizes each area of change and provides references to other papers which…

Bluetooth® Mesh Subnet Bridging - Technical Overview

Subnet bridging was introduced in version 1.1 of the Bluetooth® Mesh protocol specification. This…

Bluetooth® Mesh Remote Provisioning - Technical Overview

The remote provisioning feature was introduced in version 1.1 of the Bluetooth® Mesh protocol…

Bluetooth® Mesh Private Beacons - Technical Overview

Private Beacons are a type of beacon that was introduced in Bluetooth® Mesh version…

Bluetooth® Mesh Directed Forwarding - Technical Overview

Directed forwarding was introduced in version 1.1 of the Bluetooth® Mesh protocol specification. To…

Bluetooth® Mesh Device Firmware Update - Technical Overview

Bluetooth® Mesh 1.1 introduced a new set of capabilities which allow the firmware running…

Bluetooth® Mesh Certificate Based Provisioning - Technical Overview

Certificate-based provisioning was introduced in version 1.1 of the Bluetooth® Mesh protocol specification. To…

Introducing Bluetooth NLC – A Milestone in the Interoperability Journey

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) recently announced its full-stack standard for wireless lighting…

In Case You Missed It – What’s New With Bluetooth Commercial Lighting

Bluetooth® commercial lighting systems are deployed in offices, retail, healthcare, factories, and other facilities…

How Bluetooth 5.4 Expands the Full Market Potential of ESLs

The next time you go shopping, take a peek at the shelves around you…

The Latest in HADM with Bluetooth LE

HADM, or high accuracy distance measurement using Bluetooth does exactly what it says –…

Bluetooth LE and Cellular IoT Wearables Help Us Take Care of Our Pets

Since the 1970s, the role of pets in the family has changed. Back then,…

Supply Chain Visibility: The Key to a Resilient and Agile Supply Chain

The modern world of commerce relies on the performance and operational efficiency of multiple,…

ABI Snapshot - 2023 Bluetooth Market Update

The Bluetooth® Market Update, released annually by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), highlights…

2023 Bluetooth® Market Update

Featuring new market insights and industry forecasts from ABI Research and other analyst firms...

Features and Benefits of Bluetooth Mesh 1.1 for Wireless Mesh Networking

Commercial and industrial applications like lighting require large-scale, low-power device networks where thousands of…

EJOT | INDUTRAX Case Study

EJOT, headquartered in North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany, is a group of medium-sized companies with production…

Bringing Wireless Controls To The Epicentre Of Connectivity

This year, the time came for the lighting infrastructure at the Bluetooth SIG headquarters…

Smart Lighting And Controls Halve Energy Consumption At Campus Pitzemburg

Campus Pitzemburg has cut its energy usage by 50% thanks to smart controlled energy…

2022 Bluetooth® Market Update

Featuring new market insights and industry forecasts from ABI Research and other analyst firms...

Bluetooth Location Services

See 8 use cases for enhancing building efficiencies and creating a better visitor experience, discover new data that supports the latest trends and forecasts, and find out what’s driving the rapid adoption of location services solutions.

Smart Solutions Using Network Lighting Infrastructures

An intelligent network lighting control infrastructure helps business owners and staff know more about…

Tile is working with Lenovo to help you find your lost laptop

Announced at CES 2022, Tile and Lenovo are teaming up to make ThinkPad X1s…

The new Chipolo Card Spot puts Apple’s Find My network in your wallet

Chipolo has a new Bluetooth tracker it’s announcing at CES 2022, a new version…

2021 Bluetooth® Market Update

Supported by updated forecasts from ABI Research and insights from several other analyst firms, the Bluetooth Market Update highlights the latest Bluetooth trends and forecasts.

Designing and Developing Bluetooth® Internet Gateways

Learn about Bluetooth internet gateways, how to make them secure and scalable, and design and implement your own working prototype gateway and web application for use with either Bluetooth LE Peripherals or with Bluetooth mesh networks.

How to Make Wearables Bluetooth Mesh Provisioners

Learn how to create applications for smartwatches and other platforms that can monitor and control nodes in a Bluetooth mesh network.

Lighting as a Platform

See how connected lighting systems are being used as a platform to enable advanced building services like wayfinding, asset tracking, and space utilization to improve the ROI of smart building investments.

An Introduction to the Bluetooth Mesh Proxy Function

Learn how to create applications for smartphones and other platforms which can monitor and control nodes in a Bluetooth mesh network.

Build a Smarter Building with Blue

See how Bluetooth increases reliability, reduces costs, and enhances your smart building ROI.

 Get Help