MEDICAL-GRADE MONITORS IN HEALTHCARE: A CLOSER LOOK

How to Choose the Right Medical Monitor for Your Departments

Medical-grade computers are amazing tools. With them, providers and healthcare personnel can access data ranging from patients’ EMRs to the latest blood test results. Viewing and accessing this data is accomplished via a medical-grade monitor or display.

Today’s post covers this critical piece of medical equipment. How is it different from that flatscreen on your desk, for example? Why do these differences exist? We review how medical displays are used in healthcare and built for their specific department or use.

Finally, we provide a list of questions to ask when purchasing the right medical monitor for your organization.

What Is a Medical-Grade Monitor?

Medical-grade monitors are specifically designed to meet the demanding requirements of the healthcare industry. They are certified for near-patient safety and use, feature sealed casings, and offer department-specific image quality. These specialized displays set themselves apart from conventional consumer-grade monitors in various ways.

When taken together, they aid healthcare personnel in providing the best possible patient care experience.

Characteristics That Define Medical-Grade Monitors

We have covered the differences between medical-grade monitors and consumer-grade monitors in the past. Some of these features include:

Image quality: Medical specialists like radiologists make life-and-death decisions over an X-ray or MRI image. Any image displayed on their monitors must have exceptional clarity, resolution, quality, color, and contrast. This enables them to spot shadows or other subtle visual signs that might be a malignant tumor.

Regulatory compliance: The medical field is highly regulated. Medical equipment manufacturers ensure their products are tested and certified for patient safety, such as IEC 60601-1. Consumer–grade monitors lack these required certifications.

Durability and reliability: Medical facilities like hospitals are open 24/7. Electronics must function reliably in such settings, which is something consumer-grade monitors are not built to do.

Hygiene: Hospital staff spend excessive time and effort keeping facilities germ-free. IP65-rated medical-grade computer monitors are sealed to withstand harsh cleaning materials.

Purpose-built: Surgical displays must be clear in the bright lights used in surgeries. In addition, select radiology monitors may need to display up to 65,536 shades of gray for specific exams. All-purpose consumer monitors are too generalized to meet each specialty’s unique requirements.

Cost efficiency: Consumer displays are upfront less costly per unit than medical-grade monitors. That price advantage disappears over time as off-the-shelf models break down and must be repaired or replaced.

Conclusion: Commercial-grade displays have too many limitations to meet healthcare’s high demands.

Resolution and Image Quality

Resolution is the level of detail contained in an image. This level is measured in pixels (picture elements), the smallest unit that composes a digital image. The more pixels in a given image space, the higher its resolution and greater the image quality.

Medical-grade monitors are known for their superior image quality, which is typically evaluated based on color accuracy, luminance, brightness, calibration, and consistency. These standards are essential for diagnostic medical-grade displays used in radiology.

The specialty of radiology is well-known for its use of monitors, which demand consistent images of the highest quality. Medical monitors used for other purposes, and departments do not require them to be at such levels.

Color Accuracy: This refers to how well the medical display reproduces the intended colors of an image correctly. Color accuracy includes grayscale, the shades of gray between black and white. This is extremely important in radiology since X-rays are rendered in grayscale. Medical monitors can display billions of colors depending on the model.

Color space, delta E (dE) level, and color gamut are ways to measure color accuracy for a particular monitor. Many healthcare IT departments use resolution, measured in megapixels (MP), to determine how well the image is displayed.

Regarding medical imaging, the American College of Radiology suggests a minimum monitor resolution of 3MP for X-ray, MRI, CT, and ultrasound images. However, a resolution of 5MP is legally required for mammography images. Medical-grade monitors may have lower resolutions in certain specialties, even as low as 2MP.

Luminance and Brightness: Luminance is the light that the light source creates. How bright or dim that light looks to the viewer is called its brightness.

Brightness is measured in candelas per square meter (cd/m2). The viewer can make out more in an image's dark areas if it is higher.

Diagnostic medical liquid crystal displays (LCD) should have high luminance and brightness. The maximum luminance, or Lmax, should be at least 250 cd/m2 for ultrasound, fluoroscopy, and nuclear medicine images. This figure jumps to 350 cd/m2 for X-ray, CT, and MRI scans. Images from mammograms should be viewed on monitors with at least 400 cd/m2.

Medical-grade monitors primarily used for other purposes, such as patient monitoring, do not need to meet these lighting standards.

Medical displays must be calibrated to ensure their colors align with the DICOM's RGB color model. This calibration is essential because it ensures that medical providers see consistent images and details, whether viewed on a hospital medical-grade monitor or an office display. Calibration can be done manually by healthcare IT personnel, but some high-end displays come with built-in software and hardware, including light sensors, for self-calibration. It's important to note that while these advanced displays are commonly found in radiology departments, they may not be necessary for other medical environments.

Regulatory Standards for Medical Displays

As previously discussed, medical-grade monitors are highly regulated compared to consumer displays. Two regulations of note are compliance with DICOM and medical-grade.

DICOM is the acronym for Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine. It is the international medical image and related information standard (ISO 12052). For example, a DICOM-compliant monitor will display an accurate reproduction of grayscale images from an MRI (DICOM part 3.14). This is regardless of the monitor’s graphic card or the connected medical-grade computer.

Medical grade means the medical display has been built, tested, and certified for safe near-patient use per IEC 60601 and UL/cUL 60601-1 standards.

Other standards include HIPAA compliance to protect personal health data and ingress protection (IP65) against dust and water. Both show how medical-grade monitors are built to meet specifications for the healthcare sector.

Selecting the Right Medical-Grade Monitor

You now have a good understanding of medical-grade computers. What are the most important factors to consider when purchasing them for your healthcare group?

Specific Requirements

Will it be used to review images to aid in patient diagnosis? Will it pull up EMR records or the patient’s vitals in real time?

Remember, each department uses its medical displays differently. These needs require different image quality, color calibration, and brightness. Even screen glare, as in the case of surgical monitors, may need to be considered.

Cost

Medical-grade monitors are more costly than store-bought displays because they’re customized to work in harsh and unforgiving healthcare environments. The price tag can rise if a department like radiology has even more specialized needs.

Training and User Adaptation

It's essential to allocate time and resources to train staff on how to use the new monitor effectively. Medical-grade monitors may have advanced features that are not immediately apparent, so staff members should receive reassurance and guidance on utilizing them. For instance, educating the staff about the monitor's IP65 sealing against dust and dirt is crucial, which makes it safe to use hospital-grade cleaners and spray directly at the screen for thorough cleaning.

Compatibility and Integration

Medical-grade monitors are the output devices for everything electronic, from medical devices to equipment like medical box PCs. The two need to connect so the monitors can display data.

Ensure your monitors have the correct modern ports like USB-C and legacy ports to connect to older but still-used hospital devices (like older anesthesia machines).

Vendor Support

When purchasing medical-grade monitors, it's important to consider your options carefully. While buying from resellers provides you with a broad range of choices from various vendors, it also comes with limitations. These resellers may not have much flexibility in pricing, as they are often bound by the pricing strategies of the vendors they work with. Additionally, when it comes to customization or repair of the monitors, resellers may have limited capabilities, as they depend on the support and offerings provided by the vendors.

On the other hand, dealing directly with the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) offers distinct advantages. OEMs have complete control over pricing, customization options, and product support. This means that these factors are all negotiable, providing more flexibility for your specific needs.

Meeting Your Medical-Grade Monitor Needs with Cybernet

The world of healthcare is as unique as any other human endeavor, from agriculture to oil and gas production. Medical-grade monitors are designed and built for the sector, allowing them to handle 24/7 tasks that would break consumer-grade counterparts.

Contact a Cybernet team professional to discover the myriad benefits of medical-grade monitors. Our professionals are eager to delve into the advantages provided by an Original Design Manufacturer. These include failure rates below 2%, military-grade standard components, an extended lifecycle, and a 3-to-5-year warranty.