Many of our customers have been asking us if MediCollector can communicate with GE Marquette Dash or Solar or Unity patient monitors.  As of v1.1.11, all of our products can now communicate with this series of patient monitors.  The only drawback is that these devices can only export numerics at a speed of 1 datapoint every 2 seconds (0.5 Hz).  This means you can record/stream signals like HR and RR and SpO2 and NIBP, but you can't access waveforms like ECG and RESP.  This is due to the bandwidth limitations of the device.

To see exactly which devices are compatible with MediCollector, see our list of supported devices.

This product is designed for customers who want to continuously stream and/or record medical device data in the background.  By using MediCollector SERVICE, you don't need to worry about the complex communication protocols and cabling requirements for each individual device.  Simply embed MediCollector into your system, and let it run invisibly in the background.  It runs as a Windows Service, so it will launch when the computer starts up, run continuously, and automatically recover from errors for uninterrupted data streaming.

This command line interface is designed for software developers who want to quickly and easily query/poll a medical device for live data.  Data is immediately outputted to a simple text file.  It can be scripted or automated to run frequently (every 10 minutes?) to create a simple database of live data over time.  

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.  

With the release of our latest products, there are now numerous ways to embed MediCollector into your own applications.  For more information, please our new page about adding data-acquisition into your own products.

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 use the MediCollector software to export the data 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 file can then be imported into other applications like Excel, Matlab, SAS, R, etc.  

But with a little programming effort, you can actually skip the export step and access the data directly in the .medi 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 recommend 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 files?
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 Excel
• How to  access data from other 3rd Party Applications

Do you have any Matlab examples?
Yes!  Please download our example Matlab code for loading and plotting data directly from .medi files.  This zip file contains instructions, an example Matlab script, and some required 3rd party components to make it all work.  This code is provided without technical support.  So you are on your own!  If you aren't a skilled a Matlab programmer, we suggest you just EXPORT your data into a TXT or EDF file and then import it into Matlab.