Top 3 Medical Touch Display Enhancement Trends in 2022
Medical device developers have continued the push to bring new touch-enabled devices to the healthcare industry. When it comes to applications like home health and monitoring, imaging and device control displays, lobby kiosks, and patient check-ins, the medical industry continues to adopt touchscreens in new ways and places. Customizations and designs can vary dramatically from one device to the next, but three trends continue to dominate touchscreen display development for medical devices.
1 – Custom Cover Glass for Medical Touch Screens
The leading enhancement for medical touch displays in 2022 continues to be custom cover glass. Companies can start with one of Touch International’s OFX open frame touch monitors or can develop a completely custom stack up. A custom cover glass allows companies to showcase their brand while enhancing user experience and functionality.
Having a seamless glass front panel that is sealed, easy to sterilize, and resistant to external contaminants from fingerprints to bacteria is critical for protecting the patients, the staff, and the crucial medical devices.
2 – EMI Shielding
EMI shielding is a critical component in a wide range of medical applications such as FDA Class II, III, or devices requiring IEC 60601/61010 certification. Given the number of sensitive electronics found in an operating room or imaging facility, a little bit of EMI noise can cause a lot of problems. Luckily there is a range of shielding options to mitigate this issue, from optical filters and conductive printing to conductive gaskets and chassis ground solutions.
To make things easier for medical device designers, we’ve included EMI shielding as a standard on all of our Medical OFX series open frame monitors. Engineers can start with the medical OFX as a baseline, and with a simple custom cover glass design, they have a medically compliant touch display that looks completely custom.
3 – Single Board Computers
Since expanding our technology offerings to include the integration of single board computers into touch displays to offer complete touch-enabled computing solutions, we continue to see adoption for new medical applications. Considering the industry growth trends in technologies such as edge computing, SaaS platforms, decentralization, cloud solutions, and the home-health marketplace, engineering teams are pushing to integrate the latest computing technology in new and revised medical device development.
Integrating the “brains” of the machine into the interface saves on cost and time, increases reliability, and allows a smaller final package, whether it be a new device design or a retrofit.
The medical device space covers a broad range of applications ranging from smaller specialized clinics to large networked hospitals, and increasingly in our own homes, communities, schools, care facilities, and beyond. They all have one thing in common – touchscreen technology continues to be embraced and expected. Touch International is working with some of the best and brightest in the industry to help develop new possibilities for the next generation of medical applications.
We’ve emphasized how easy it can be to quickly bring a touchscreen device to market by harnessing our OFX series open frame touch monitors as a reference design, because it is. Product designers can promptly achieve the fit and finish of a custom OEM product that’s backed years of proven performance and continuous improvements in medical touchscreen applications.
Until Next Time – Keep in Touch!
Shaun Detmer
Director of Marketing, Touch International
