General Electric Co. (GE) and Royal Philips Electronics NV won U.S. approval to monitor hospital patients using airwaves dedicated to flight testing by aerospace companies led by Boeing Co. The Federal Communications Commission on a 5-0 vote today decided medical-equipment makers could employ wireless monitoring that may rid hospital rooms of nests of cables and let patients move out of expensive intensive-care wards. GE Healthcare proposed the use of new airwaves for patient monitoring in 2007. Aerospace companies said wireless medical data could foul streams of flight-test telemetry from missiles and planes, endangering pilots and people on the ground.
