Wireless sensors aim to unravel hospital lines

The tangle of wires and lines a patient in an intensive care unit can be tethered to has long been a frustration for nurses. For years, engineers at GE Healthcare and its competitors have envisioned using wireless technology to do just that. The obstacle hasn't been the technology. It has been getting dedicated space on the wireless spectrum. That happened this May when the Federal Communications Commission allocated a sliver of the spectrum for wireless sensors. Life Care Solutions, a unit of GE Healthcare based in Milwaukee, has pushed for the allocation for more than five years. The decision clears the way for what the industry is calling medical body area networks, or MBANs.