There has been much discussion surrounding the "safety and efficacy" of using standards based wireless technologies for medical device applications. In addition certain "major" patient monitoring companies it seems still want to retain the marketing uniquness of "their" separate "wireless" network and oh yes still cling to notion that legacy WMTS is more reliable. Over six years ago, companies like www.welchallyn.com and www.draeger.com were very forward looking to design new patient monitoring and telemetry solutions using stanards based WLAN (802.11a/b/g). They even championed that notion of "shared" networks of which was very novel at the time. Concern prevailed over security and reliability, but they (these networks)are still working. All in all this type of approach has saved the industry millions of $$ in not having to install separate infrastructures. Recent discussions with Jim Welch of www.masimo.com informed me that they have provided a similiar approach for centralized Sp02 monitoring. One hospital he claimed saved 2 million $$ in infrastructure costs alone,versus their competition he explained. As one who has troubleshot VHF telemetry systems with a spectrum analyzer, certainly WMTS is no different, it is totally proprietary in the largest sense. In terms of reducing costs, risk, ensuring security, why not use standards based WLANS for medical devices? You can then use the following tools for site planning and 24/7/365 enteprise monitoring. If FIPS approval is present in the WLAN world for the U.S. Government, I am sure that it is capable of handing wireless medical device security. Again, none of these tools are available for the WMTS world or more than likely not used for "closed" proprietary wireless patient monitoring networks.
http://csrc.nist.gov/cryptval/140-1/140val-all.htm
