Week 4 - Client Primary Research: Force and Pressure Sensors, FHIR Standards.

Overview

This week we were focused on conducting the requested primary research into the types of sensors used in the industrial infusion pumps and looking into the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) standards. We have prepared a Power Point Presentation for the client meeting next Tuesday.

Industrial Research

We first started the research by finding out the biggest infusion pump sensor manufacturers in the world and looking at their sensors. The biggest manufacturers are Honeywell, TE Connectivity, and Strain Measurement Devices (SMD). All had a long presence in the industry and proved the quality of their sensors.

Digging deeper into the research we found out that the seminal components in infusion pumps are Force and Pressure sensors. The roles and explanations of all sensors are noted in the previous week’s entry.

There are many different types of force sensors, however, by far, the most popular ones are S256 by SMD and MicroForce FMA series by Honeywell.

For the pressure sensors, B354 by SMD and MicroPressure MPR series by Honeywell take the lead.

After having a better understanding of the sensors used in the industry and their manufactures, we looked into the FHIR Standards.

FHIR Standards.

From our MoSCoW requirements, Security and Reliability has a top priority since we are dealing with patients’ healthcare information. This is why we need FHIR. It ensures that the patients’ electronic health records are available, reliable and understandable.

Conveniently, it is also compatible with other widely used standards.

We acknowledged its advantages over the other standards.

Conclusion and Next Steps

This research wraps up the process of developing a good clinical background and understanding workflows and use cases of the infusion pumps that our project revolves around. We will present these findings in the next client meeting and will work on improving the system user interface and experience on Figma.