Research

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Primary Research

The system will be used in a clinical context, therefore, clients wanted us to get familiar with infusion pumps and asked to conduct primary research on different types of sensors used in infusion pumps.

We continued our primary research into infusion pumps and now have a better understanding of the purpose of the project. We have made progress by reading official manuals and research papers about smart infusion pumps, which helped us gain deeper understanding of the sensors and other components widely used in infusion pumps such as force sensors, pressure sensors and magnetic position sensor.

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Industrial Research

Next, 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 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 of them had a long presence in the industry and proved the quality of their sensors.

Digging deeper into the research we found out that the major components in infusion pumps are Force and Pressure sensors. There are many different types of sensors from various manufacturers, therefore, we compared them and observe the differences between them.

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.

From our MoSCoW requirements, Security and Reliability is the top priority since we are dealing with the patient's healthcare information. It ensures that the patients’ electronic health records are available, reliable and understandable.

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

We also looked into its advantages over the other standards.

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