Hospital Equipment Unaffected By Cell Phone Use, Study Finds

The devices triggered the adverse reactions, sending both patients to emergency rooms for evaluation. The report's authors recommend that the anti- theft devices be placed in areas of stores where customers won't linger -- away from vending machines or displays of sale merchandise, for instance -- to help avoid future episodes.

Store employees also should be trained to move a customer who has collapsed near an anti-theft device when medically advisable, says J. Rod Gimbel, M.D, of East Tennessee Heart Consultants, and an author of the report. If they aren't moved, they could experience recurring life-threatening malfunction to their implantable device, as did one patient who was described in the report.

"Simply moving the person away from the anti-theft device may save their life," Dr. Gimbel says.

Though Gimbel's report outlines only two cases of anti-theft devices causing implantable heart devices to malfunction, he asserts that similar instances are likely underreported, qualifying the problem as a potentially widespread public safety issue.

"Many times with public safety issues we wait until something bad occurs before we act," Dr. Gimbel says. "Here's an opportunity where we can make our knowledge public and head off future problems."

In an accompanying editorial, John Abenstein, M.D., of Mayo Clinic's Department of Anesthesiology, addresses the journal reports relating to the impact of technological devices on patient care equipment.

Dr. Abenstein says the risk of some technological devices upsetting the function of patient care equipment in hospitals appears to be small. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should take a more explicit stand on the matter, he says, so that health care facility policies can be altered when appropriate.

Other authors of the cell phone study are Jeffrey Tri, Rodney Severson, and Linda Hyberger, all of Mayo Clinic Rochester. The other author of the anti-theft device report is James Cox Jr., M.D., of the University of Tennessee Medical Center-Knoxville.

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