MediCollector would like to congratulate the team of researchers from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and Monash University in Malaysia for their paper at the International Federation of Automatic Control's 10th IFAC Symposium on Biological and Medical Systems BMS 2018.  This team used MediCollector to gather data for their study of lung mechanics in preemies.  We wish them continued success in their work!  The full text of their publication is available using the link below.

ADInstruments is a company that provides a large suite of products, such as LabChart, for data acquisition, visualization and analysis... but they can't acquire data from your bedside patient monitors.

MediCollector's products are focused primarily on data acquisition... not analysis.  So to analyze your data, you will need 3rd party tools like LabChart.  I can think of one easy way to get your bedside data into LabChart:  Use MediCollector to record the data.  Then when finished recording, export the data to an EDF or EDF+ file and open it inside LabChart.  I just tested this using the free version of LabChart (LabChart Reader) and it works great!

MediCollector does stream live data out to 3rd party applications.  But even though Labchart has a bunch of "device enablers" and other add-ons,  I don't know of any way to get LabChart to unpack and receive that data in real-time.  So your best bet is to use MediCollector for recording, and then export to EDF for use in LabChart.

The MediCollector software applications were built because the interfaces to medical devices are waaaaay to complex.  We want to make it easy for you to access the data that is generated in these devices.  And now we have a new way to make this data available to you!

Our customers can now stream live data out to third party applications in real-time.  This is done by outputting the data to a TCP/IP port using a very simple protocol.  This allows customers to receive and process data or execute algorithms in real-time in external applications like Matlab or C++.  

For more information, please read our application note on streaming live data from medical devices.  This streaming functionality is already available in the latest version of MediCollector BEDSIDE and MediCollector SERVICE.  And we even provide you with very simple examples that shows you how to access the data stream using Matlab or LabVIEW. 

And as always, please don't hesitate to contact us.  We are experts in data acquisition and can help you.

Good news!  In response to customer demand, I am proud to announce that MediCollector can now support a wide range of GE patient monitors, including:

• CARESCAPE B850, B650, B450
• PROCARE B20, B30, B40, B105, B125
• Datex-Ohmeda S/5
• ​Cardiocap 5
• AS/3 Anesthesia Monitor
• AS/3 Compact Monitor
• ​CS/3 Critical Care Monitor
• CS/3 Compact Monitor
  ​

For an exact list, please see our list of supported devices.

Using MediCollector software and cables, you can now connect to these GE devices and download, stream and record data (including both waveforms and numerics) from all of these GE devices.  

MediCollector BEDSIDE is a software product for retrieving and recording data from patient monitors and medical devices.  ​It is a standard Windows desktop application.  So you install it on your computer, and interact with it using a mouse and keyboard.  But many of our customers have asked if they can take MediCollector's data-acquisition functionality, and seamlessly embed it into their own product or system.  For example, maybe you have a Electronic Medical Records system, and want to integrate it with a medical device at the bedside?  This is typically done using a application programming interface (API) or some kind of automation.  Here's how you can do deploy or embed MediCollector into your own custom systems:

• Command Line Interface.  This method allows you to run MediCollector from a command line and immediately retrieve the current live values from your medical device.  The command line runs seamlessly (i.e. invisibly) in the background and quickly returns the current values.  This allows you to embed data-acquisition into your own product or system.  Details are explained in this application note.
    
• Automation.  Another way to do this is using automation.  Using a simple text file, you can configure MediCollector to automatically begin recording when it is launched.  Using this method, you could build a "wrapper" around MediCollector and remotely configure it to begin recording according to your own specification.  Details are explained in this application note. 
  
  
• Real-time Streaming.  The MediCollector BEDSIDE and MediCollector SERVICE software applications can stream live data out to third party applications in real-time.  This is done by outputting the data to a TCP/IP port using a very simple protocol.  This allows customers to process data or execute algorithms in real-time in applications like Matlab.  Details are explained in this application note. 

We want to hear feedback from you!  If these interfaces doesn't meet your needs, please let us know.  We might be able to build a custom interface for you.  Don't hesitate to contact us!

This post if for advanced users who want to access data contained in MediCollector datafiles directly.  Normally, to access the data in a MediCollector datafile, you would export it into a standard file format like a tab-delimited CSV file or an EDF file. This is done from within MediCollector by choosing FILE>EXPORT from the menu.  The resulting exported file can then be imported into other applications like Excel, Matlab, SAS, R, etc.  

But that can be cumbersome.  With a little effort, you can actually skip the export step and access the data directly in the datafile.

Before continuing, I highly suggest you read through our FAQ, because it contains a lot of useful information about datafiles etc.  Below, I will provide more details for our advanced users:

WARNING!  
Please be aware that this is for advanced users only.  For the majority of users, we reccomend simply choosing FILE>EXPORT to get your data into 3rd party application.  But if you are a good programmer, please continue reading. 

What is the .medi file format?
MediCollector stored data in files that have a ".medi" file extension.  These files are stored using a compressed binary format called TDMS. This format is an open standard maintained by National Instruments.

How do I directly access data in .medi file?
If desired, you can use third-party tools and programming languages to access data in .medi files directly.  And you can even install plugins into programs like Excel to load .medi files directly.  Below are various resources to help you get started with this.

• How to open files directly from MatLab
• How to open files directly from Excel
• How to  access data from other 3rd Party Applications

Did you ever wish that MediCollector products could collect data from multiple devices simultaneously?

Even though this is not an out-of-the-box option with MediCollector, below I describe some simple ways to solve this problem.   

MediCollector BEDSIDE is a software product for retrieving and recording data from patient monitors and medical devices.  But currently, it only allows one-to-one connections. So you would typically install MediCollector on one computer, and record data from one device. But we have some solutions for those who want to record from multiple devices:

• Option 1:  Buy multiple copies of MediCollector.  This is not a very elegant solution, but its probably the quickest.  
• Option 2:  Hire us to make this possible!  MediCollector already has the underlying code for communicating with medical devices.  So its not exactly rocket science to modify our products to support multiple devices.  If this functionality is something you really need, and you're willing to finance the development, please contact us and let us know!
• Option 3:  Use your Patient Monitor as the data aggregator.  Most patient monitors, such as GE monitors or Philips Intellivue monitors, allow you to plug almost any device into them.  They can essentially act as an all-in-one data aggregator for you.  Using this technique, you can plug just about anything into your patient monitor to acquire and display data from multiple devices.  Then you can use one copy of MediCollector to record the data from that patient monitor.  As an example, Philips offers special modules called VueLink or IntelliBridge which plug into the Intellivue device and can acquire data from virtually anything.  MediCollector is skilled at building custom aggregator solutions like this, and it is probably the most elegant, affordable and accurate method of aggregating the data.   By using the patient monitor as the "aggregator" you are able to synchronize all the signals using the clock inside the patient monitor, which provides a very accurate method of synchronizing data from multiple sources.  Please contact us and we can help you do this.

Welcome to our blog!  This is the first post in the MediCollector Blog.  This blog was created to provide support and advice to MediCollector customers.  We'll post here about once a week with news, information and expert opinions on topics such as:

• Company news and press releases
• Product updates, patches and new releases
• Tips and tricks for using MediCollector products
• LabVIEW programming advice
• Knowledgebase articles
• General advice, thoughts and onions related to automation, data-acquisition and measurement systems
• User-cases
• Customer reviews

​We look forward to hearing from you!  Use the comments below to tell us what you think!