Case Studies: Telemedicine

Telemedicine, using technology to bring doctors and patients together efficiently over distance, is a rapidly growing field. Since 2008, Saturn Systems has provided core software development and quality assurance services to industry leaders. Our projects range from medical device communications and integration, to online calendar management. Saturn Systems’ unique skills mix of device control and enterprise application development are the perfect fit for the industry.

Electronic blood glucose meters are used by diabetics to accurately track blood sugar levels. They are used by doctors in telemedicine to track a patient’s daily and long term ability to manage these levels. Available meters communicate with a PC using either serial or USB communications. Saturn Systems has developed and integrated drivers for a number of these devices, each of which has a unique communications protocol.

In the process of upgrading the audio conferencing features of their flagship product from Windows XP to Windows 7, one of Saturn Systems telemedicine clients discovered that support for acoustic echo cancellation (AEC) was no long supported in the Microsoft Real-Time Communications libraries. Saturn Systems engineers were asked to replace the system with a custom solution and a new audio codec. Using Microsoft’s Media Foundation technology, a replacement was developed that included the necessary loopback functionality required for echo cancellation. The resulting component provided better quality audio and efficiency than the original solution and was integrated with the core product successfully.

Saturn Systems engineers integrated a Bluetooth compatible medical device, in this case a bathroom scale, with an existing telemedicine platform. Integrating new Bluetooth devices with the platform in the future will be a matter of developing the necessary driver code to communicate with the device using its protocol and plugging that into the newly developed Bluetooth infrastructure.