When Fraser Edward joined Research In Motion (the company behind BlackBerry) four years ago, the device maker had only three partners for mobile healthcare applications, Edward said during a panel session at the American Telemedicine Association in Las Vegas. Today, Edward is RIM's business manager of market development for Health & Life Sciences, and the company has 30 healthcare applications in its recently launched BlackBerry App World store.
During his presentation, Edward showed a slide of 12 mobile health companies that are "BlackBerry Solutions Partners," which means they are clients of RIM to take advantage of the company's marketing channels, developer know-how and more. Here's a rundown of the 12 companies Edward counted as Solutions Partners and the mHealth buckets he put them in:
Fitness
AllSportGPS -- powered by Trimble -- GPS-enabled mobile application for coaching on cycling, mountain biking, running, walking and other sports activities.
BonesInMotion -- GPS-enabled app targeting those participating in outdoor activity 3 or more times a week: fitness walking, running, cycling, hiking, mountain biking, GeoCaching, and other outdoor activities.
BodyMedia -- Wearable, "fashionable" body monitors that record and transmit a variety of physiological data to the BodyMedia's website.
Healthy Lifestyle
Myca - Enables nutrition professionals connect with their clients through video consults, messaging, a personalized website, and a picture food journal.
Sensei - Makes mobile health applications for a wide variety of handsets, but most recently launched a couple of iPhone applications, including one for diabetics.
Personal Health Records
Tolven - Open source healthcare solutions developer of PHRs, clinician health records and health informatics.
CapMed - Offers PHRs for families to keep track of their own health data.
Corporate Wellness/Chronic Disease Management
t+Medical - Offers disease management and remote monitoring services that work with most mobile phones and also does some work with clinical trial management.
Medtronic - Develops medical devices and services to help people better manage chronic diseases.
Healthanywhere - Offers applications that let users monitor their health from a smartphone, PC or from a "dedicated Healthanywhere supplied platform."
Confidant - Provides a mobile-phone based service that includes feedback, coaching and context to a patient's chronic disease management routine, while simplifying and automating the flow of information between patients and their healthcare providers.
RIM also partners with chipmaker AMD for Corporate Wellness and Chronic Disease management.
