Cell phones don’t affect hospital equipment

Spending more than a day without Internet or cell phone access stresses me out. Therefore, I see it as complementary antianxiety therapy.

Last year, I spent 3 days being checked out in my local hospital. I complained about the lack of a cell to no avail.

Now, we have evidence from an impeccable source that debunks this silly rule.

The Mayo Clinic Proceedings reports, “Although cellular telephone use in general has been prohibited in hospitals because of concerns that these telephones would interfere with medical devices, this study revealed that when cellular telephones are used in a normal way no noticeable interference or interactions occurred with the medical devices.

• 2 cell telephones from different carriers were tested in various patient care areas.
• Interference of any type occurred in none of the 75 patient care rooms during 300 tests of 192 medical devices.

The incidence of clinically important interference was 0%.

3/13/07 16:02 JR