Service-Oriented Medical Device Connectivity: Particular Interoperability Standards for High Frequency Surgical Equipment and External Control Devices

Manufacturer-independent medical device interoperability has been strongly demanded by the clinicians and healthcare delivery organizations (HDOs), however has not been achieved in practice for decades. The ISO/IEEE 11073 Service-oriented Device Connectivity (SDC) family of standards constitutes a paradigm shift. This work supplements SDC with Device Specializations (DevSpecs) or Modular Specifications (ModSpecs): particular interoperability standards for high frequency (HF) surgical equipment and external control devices, such as foot or finger switches. They provide models to describe these devices in a service-oriented medical device system and modes of interaction with other network participants. Additionally, we contribute to the ISO/IEEE 11073-10101 nomenclature standard to provide semantic descriptions of the exchanged information. This is a key enabler for safe and effective medical device interoperability to support the caregivers and improve patient safety as well as clinical outcome.