Two hospitals I’ve been in have had signs ordering no cell phones be used because they can interfere with certain equipment, which nurses claimed to be telemetry gear to monitor patients. I don’t believe it. Wouldn’t everyone using cell phones in the parking lot (or in one case, outside in the center of Greenwich Village) be senting heart patients into convulsions all the time??
Why is this a brain teaser, cell phones emit considerable amounts of EMF radiation relative to the sensitive low level signals amplified and used in medical monitoring equipment. Radiation levels fall off with the inverse square law. Cell phone use outside the immediate hospital monitoring zone should pose no problem as potential EMF interference will be orders of magnitude weaker if the cell phone is at a some reasonable distance.
Study: Cell Phones Interfere With Medical devices
Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) Testing of Medical Devices
In many cases the cell phone has to be within inches or a few feet of a piece of equipment to affect it, but (I’ve observed) cell phone talkers in hospitals often hovering directly over the patient inches from the equipment. If it’s my heart being monitored I don’t want cell phones being used in my room.
They also probably do not want all the visitors to disturb the patients/doctors/nurses/etc with all the annoying ring sounds that the cell phones have now. I would think that preserving a medical person’s concentration and the peacefulness of the hospital would be enough for anyone. Personally, I wish there were more cell-phone restricted areas around.
nahtanoj
But wait a minute, what about all those doctors who wear pagers? Do they have to shut them off when making rounds? Are they sending people into convulsion whenever they get paged?
I think it’s a bunch of whoey!
I’d guess its in the “unlikely to ever cause a problem, but why risk it?” category.
If you want a far more ludicrous cellphone ban to contemplate, I submit this: gas stations that ban talking on phones while pumping gas. Despite the fact that there’s never been a single cellphone-related gasoline fire at a gas station. Ever. Despite the fact that its far more likely that something like a piece of metal or rock scraping the ground would cause a fire. Despite the fact that even if a little gasoline catches on fire, its not particularly dangerous. Nonetheless, this has been made law in many states, including mine.
Umm… pagers aren’t generating any really significant RF like cell phones do in close proximity to the equipment. They are usually receivers only and the RF paging source is far enough away that it does not cause potential problems.
Pagers are receive only. They don’t generate anywhere near the same levels of RF as a cell phone.
Quite a bit of the “cell phones are evil” phenomenon is a bunch of hooey (like the gas pump thing, IMHO), but keeping them away from medical equipment is one of those cases where the dangers are in fact real.
I’ve worked on a telemetry unit, and there were more than a few occasions where a cell phone would cause some poor patient’s monitor to go completely screwy. The nurse would rush in to see what the deal was, and generally, it would be a relative of the patient (or the patient himself) on a cell phone.
It also extends to other kinds of monitoring besides cardiac, apparently, because my parents were asked not to use their cell phones in the OB monitoring unit.
Robin
Not so, engineer_comp_geek. Take a look at this-- Report on Electromagnetic Interference in Hospitals.
Particularily,
Sure it hasn’t been updated, hospitals would like things just the way they are, quiet. They don’t want people jabbering, or getting calls (Which, if you think about it, is probably the one time a cell phone is critical in keeping in touch with family, friends, and loved ones).
No, they like it the way it is, and it appears they’ll be willing to propogate this BS far and wide.
Hooey!! (Thanks for the spelling correction)
- I should add that even I, a full fledged cell phone lover, didn’t realize the scope of this cunard until I found that site.
Actually, my mom works in a doctors office attatched to the hospital here in Slidell. She was told that digital cell phones cause no problem. However, when a phone’s set to analogue, it can mess with the heart monitors. My guess is that the hospitals feel it’s easier to tell everyone not to use phones instead of checking with everyone to make sure they’re using digital!
It is NOT BS. Your link even says, “Therefore, FDA recommends that clinicians and other device users do the following: … Consider preventing known sources of interference (e.g., cellular phones, hand-held transceivers) from coming too close to patient monitors and other sensitive electronic medical devices.”
I dunno yojimboguy, but when a hospital (Hennepin County. Just up the street from me, incidentally) installs “in-house cellular phone systems – augmented by laptop computers and PCs – to improve staff communication and enhance patient service.”, I start to think the signs are bullshit.
What do you think?
There are still plenty of places to use a cell phone. Not all patients are on monitors, for one thing, and for another, you can always go into the corridor outside the unit and make your call.
And, in most hospitals, there are bedside telephones available for patient and family use anyway, so if there is the need to make a call from the bedside, go ahead and do it.
Robin
Not necessarily.
When I was in Phoenix, and my grandmother needed medical attention, when I walked out into the hall to call my parents back in Minnesota, I was told I had to go outside to use my cell.
More recently, when my GF had a rather severe toothache, I was told by the hospital staff that cell phones were not allowed on the premises (At the time I was standing in the main waiting room four floors away from her, and I presume, other patients).
Bullshit.
And just to add another site, which seems to support the notion that these bans were initiated without much thought or reason, is this site- Science Daily, 1/9/2001
Relevant quote,
Now, I’ll back down on my one-hundred percent bullshit quote, because it appears that cell phones can cause disturbances, but so does every other damn thing out there used for communication. And because of that, I’m not about to buy the notion that cell phones should be banned in hospitals outright.
I think what both your link says and what ** mandielise **says may well be true, the new generation of digital phones are far less problematic. And even with older analog phones, it is unlikely there will be problems.
But there are always phones performing out of spec, or equipment not perhaps shielded as well as it should. I’m an AV technician in a hospital, and while I don’t work with medical equipment, I’ve personally had experience with cell phones interfering with our wireless mike system in meeting rooms.
So I say to you; obey the friggin signs, whether you believe them or not. There are people’s lives on the line, and they don’t need interference, either electronic OR, as you so blithely put it “jabbering” into cell phones. My hospital doesn’t ban cell phones everywhere.
One other thing; there is often no rhyme or reason to where equipment get installed in a hospital. Many of them, mine included, are in practically a permanent state of renovation. Departments are adding new equipment, getting rid of old stuff, adding or dropping various services, relocating, etc. It is VERY difficult to keep track of where all sensitive gear is. It’s often a challenge to get a patient to the right place. So, IMHO, it’s perfectly justified to post a hospital-wide ban on such communications gear.
Not to be a prick, but what does that have to do with anything? So it messed up your wireless mikes. It’s possible, and probable, that other communication gear could have had the same effect on your equipment.
Which is all pointless, anyways, because what were talking about, or the signs seem to imply, is that cell phones are dangerous to patients.
It’s my opinion, and the opinion of others in the know, that unless you’re two inches away from the most vulnerable areas of monitoring devices, there isn’t a problem.
I hardly see where that merits installing, and enforcing, signs and rules that ban the use of cell phones in large areas of the hospital.
It’s a perceived threat based on presumptive, and cursory, data.
More precisely, it’s a sham.
If they want to ban them for irritation sake, say so. But saying they’re banned for the safety of the patients is patently untrue.
I doubt a nurse confronted with a wonky monitor thinks of it as an “irritation.” And it’s certainly not the ringing or anything else.
Whenever a monitor goes wonky, it’s generally because there’s a cell phone in operation within a foot or so of the patient. And a wonky monitor is a patient-safety issue. The patient could be having problems and the nurse might not be aware of it because the monitors are being interfered with.
In any case, when I’m hooked up to a monitor (and I have been, twice in the past month), I’m not taking a chance on interference from a cell phone. I don’t care what the technical data say.
Robin
You clearly have no personal knowledge of how telecommunications work, based on your comments about pagers. So it’s up to you to come up with some outside info that supports your arguement.
You’ve provided ONE link, which suggests that there is LESS interference than commonly believed, and that PARTICULAR kinds of cell phones (digital systems) probably will not cause interference problems.
Don’t you even read YOUR OWN LINKS?
Your link says:
- 4% of medical devices suffered interference from cell phones.
- The FDA considers cell phones a “known source” of interference.
Here is one of the references listed at the bottom of YOUR link, Keeping Medical Devices Safe From Electromagnetic Interference. Quote: “Some European hospitals have already banned cellular phones from their buildings, and FDA has encouraged hospitals in the United States to take such action if warranted.” There’s also some background on real world incidents and the difficulty of tracing direct causal links.
The reason I mentioned being an AV technician is that I have a long background working with electronic equipment including transmitters. I know that interference is a slippery, hard-to-track-down thing.
And I am sick of people who don’t have a frickin’ clue what they’re talking about bitch about the uselessness of rules when the rules inconvenience THEM. In YOUR case, apparently even when those rules are intended to protect the lives of a vulnerable population.
So you’ve backed off from “100% bullshit” to “sham”, despite that your own cited reference in no way supports EITHER of those conclusions. Wow, that’s VERY open minded of you!
CnoteChris:
And one other thing about the relevance of my wireless microphone ancedote…
We have what’s called a “biomedical” department, responsible for electronic interference issues, as well as maintenance of all patient-related electronic equipment. They test EVERY piece (more accurately, one example of every model) of electrical equipment (NOT limited to electronics), right down to lamps and extension cords for both emission of, and resistance to, potentially interfering RF frequencies. Our wireless system is a grounded, shielded system. It should not have picked up a cell phone.
I have no idea whether it’s shield was flawed, or the cell phone(s) were tranmitting outside of their frequency parameters. It has happened twice in about 8 months I’ve been this job, and it’s not woth my while to track down. Cell phones are NOT banned in our area, because even though they are known to have caused interference, it is not a patient area and no one is put at risk by the interference.
But I can easily imagine hospitals where the layout and crowding demand more stringent restrictions than we have.
Whatever yojimboguy.
The full snippet of your #1 above begins “41% of medical devices suffered interference from emergency services handsets, 35% suffered interference from security/porters handsets but only 4% from cellphones.”.
A whole hell of a lot of things in a hospital causes interference, cell phones being but one, at 4%, when it’s held a few inches from the monitor (Or whatever). Despite this, hospitals find it necessary to post signs and enforce rules that prohibit cell phone use in large areas of the hospital?
Get out of here, it’s a sham, and I called it as I saw it.
No, I don’t. That’s why I found two sites that, on the surface, back up my sentiment that it’s BS. In my opinion, that’s a hell of a lot better than having as my only source my knowledge that cell phones interrupt wireless mikes while working in a hospital.
Whoopee.
And listen, I’m not talking about any threat, that’s why I backed down from the ‘completely BS’ angle (Why? Because I read the different sites). What I’m talking about is the degree to which people beleive it’s a threat to patients. In my opinion, and again, the opinion of others, it doesn’t warrant the current level of enforcement. It’s based on theoretical concepts that it does, with barely a smidgen of data (And data, mind you, that again, doesn’t support the fundamental idea that cell phones in hospital = dire consequences. Some? Sure, if you’re right next to the machine, but harmless otherwise).
Now Europe wants to do it, and the FDA says it’s OK, than so be it. But, again, I feel it makes as much sense as banning cell phones at gas stations. If they wanna do it, fine. But it doesn’t make a lick of sense.