Most of the monitoring equipment used in hospital medicine has a serial interface, and data can therefore be accessed directly by a PC, processed, and stored on disk. Conversely, many items of medical equipment can also be controlled directly by a PC via the serial interface.
The range of such equipment is growing each year, and currently includes pulse oximeters, non-invasive blood pressure machines, syringe drivers, infusion pumps, spirometers, intravascular oxygen monitors, ven¬ tilators, and the comprehensive anaesthesia monitors.