Tags: CardioNet | Medical Connectivity | Medical Device Connectivity | SoC | Tim Gee | WiFi | wireless sensors |
Tim Gee, Principal at Medical Connectivity Consulting and the chair of the Medical Device Connectivity conference in Boston last week laid out the market opportunity for wireless sensors in healthcare. Gee broke down some of the drivers for the recent interest in medical sensors, outlined use cases and dissected the market for the more than 200 attendees at last week’s event.
What is driving interest in wireless sensors for healthcare?
Gee listed the big drivers for increased interest in wireless sensors for healthcare as: advancements in circuit design and the availability of SoC (system on a chip); device virtualization: if we can push more functionality into the network, it means less needs to be built into the device; advances in infrastructure to support wireless data on carrier networks as well as advancement of WiFi in hospitals; better workflow architectures, like engine-oriented software architectures.
Unwiring the hospital bed
Why should hospitals consider switching from telemetry cables to wireless sensors? Replacing cables with wireless sensors could reduce the potential for infection. Telemetry cables are reused, which means they need to be cleaned and maintained — a real hassle for some facilities. Wireless sensors, on the other hand, could have a lower cost and may even be disposable in some cases — no cleaning required. That’s a lot of convenience for health providers, Gee noted. Keep reading>>
Tags: AHRQ | China | Datadyne | health IT | IVT | mHealth Alliance | Mobile Healthcare | PSTN | United Nations Foundation | Vodafone Foundation |
DataDyne wins WSJ Tech Innovation Award: One of the United Nations Foundation and Vodafone Foundation’s key mHealth partners, DataDyne, won the Wall Street Journal’s Technology Innovation Awards for the Healthcare IT category: “In developing countries, gathering and analyzing time-sensitive health-care information can be a challenge. Rural health clinics typically compile data only in paper records, making it difficult to spot and to respond quickly to emerging trends. With EpiSurveyor, developed with support from the United Nations Foundation and the Vodafone Foundation, health officials can create health-survey forms that can be downloaded to commonly used mobile phones. Health workers carrying the phones can then collect information—about immunization rates, vaccine supplies or possible disease outbreaks—when they visit local clinics. The information can then be quickly analyzed to determine, say, whether medical supplies need to be restocked or to track the spread of a disease.” More Keep reading>>
Tags: AVIVO | congestive heart failure | Corventis | MUSIC | West Wireless Health Institute | wireless remote monitoring |
Wireless remote monitoring and diagnostics solutions provider Corventis announced today that it has finished enrolling patients into its MUSIC (Multi-Sensor Monitoring in Congestive Heart Failure) program, which includes two trials: the MUSIC Asia (180 patients) and the pivotal MUSIC study (362 patients). The trials aim to develop and evaluate an algorithm to predict heart failure events.
Corventis has already secured FDA clearance for its core sensor technology and just announced that it received a CE Mark, which means doctors and patients in the European Union and other countries that accept the CE Mark, now can potentially use the technology, which Corventis calls its AVIVO Mobile Patient Management System.
The Corventis system monitors respiration rate, patient activity levels, and fluid levels in a patient’s body through a water-proof, adhesive sensor that is applied to the patient’s skin. Fluid levels are monitored by the sensor’s impedance detector, which measures buildup of body fluid through indirect electrical measurement. That can serve as a proxy for built up fluid levels in the lungs, which leads to shortness of breath and puts pressure on pulmonary arteries. That threatens to cause heart failure and may lead to hospitalization to remove the fluid. Keep reading>>
Tags: Dr. Stephen Schimpff | Mr. Rounder | Mt. Sinai | robotics | The Future of Medicine | University of Maryland Medical Center |
By Dr. Stephen Schimpff, author of The Future of Medicine – Mega Trends in Healthcare
Sometimes the doctor patient interaction is far from adequate, but new mobile robotic technologies can help resolve the problem. I have a colleague who developed a cardiac arrhythmia called paroxysmal atrial tachycardia or PAT. The treatment was to thread a small catheter via the femoral artery in his groin up to his heart, find the site where the arrhythmia was originating and cauterize it. The procedure went well on a Friday afternoon and my friend was kept in the hospital overnight for observation. On Saturday, the cardiologist never appeared to check him or to discuss the results. From the doctor’s perspective, the patient was fine and he didn’t need to travel into the hospital. But my friend wanted to have a discussion about the procedure. To him, it was a big deal if not to the cardiologist. So, in frustration, he checked out “AMA.” He spent the weekend annoyed and did not get to talk to the doctor until Monday. This could have been solved with a technology that is essentially a computer mounted on a mobile cart. It can be controlled from a computer at home or work to move to the patient’s room where, with two way visual and voice communication much like you may have used with Skype, the doctor can see and communicate with the patient and vice versa. It is simple, relatively inexpensive and effective. I first learned of it at Hackensack Hospital in New Jersey where they named it “Mr. Rounder” and put a white coat on it with a stethoscope to make it look interesting. Keep reading>>
Tags: Augmented Reality | Glow Caps | Kaiser Permanente | Vitality | wireless sensors | Zigbee |
Augmented reality meets next generation screen technology meets personal health: “A contact lens with augmented-reality powers would take personal health monitoring several steps further, Parvis said, because the surface of the eye can be used to measure much of the data you would read from your blood tests, including cholesterol, sodium, potassium and glucose levels.” (People are getting excited, very excited about AR) This article is a fun read, anyway: More Keep reading>>
Tags: Apple iPhone | Consumer Genetics Show | genomics | Illumina | personal genome |
Source: Apple.com
“The iPhone can be an integral part in advancing the fundamental science — the very complexities of biology and understanding of the human genome can be made accessible through tools like the iPhone,” Consumer genomics company Illumina’s CEO and President, Jay Flatley told Apple in a recent interview. “I think it is the convergence of the science and IT technology that today creates a unique possibility to manage our human health in new ways,” Flatley said. “It’s an incredibly exciting time.”
Earlier this year at the inaugural Consumer Genetics Show in Boston, Mobihealthnews reported on and included the first photos of Illumina’s concept for an iPhone application, called myGenome, that included information from a person’s genome. Following that sneak peek, Apple published a brief case study that includes a high level over view of Illumina’s use of iPhones among its sales reps and executives. The article also discusses Illumina’s plans for myGenome. Apple also produced a video with a number of images of the concept iPhone application Illumina is developing. (Our original photos from the event earlier this year can be re-visited here.) Keep reading>>
