Tags: adherence | compliance | GlowCaps | medication compliance | reminders | Vitality |
Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Vitality announced the commercial availability of its wireless Internet-enabled pill caps product, GlowCaps, which fit popular prescription bottles and help remind people to take their medications on time. GlowCaps are now available on Amazon.com for $99.
As the name suggests, GlowCaps use light and sound to signal when it is time to take medications, the product also records when a pill bottle is opened and then wirelessly relays this information into an online adherence reports. The patient, their caregivers and doctors can receive a weekly adherence report email.
If a person fails to take their medication on time, the GlowCap will call the individual to remind them. The intelligent pillbox cap also connects the patient to their pharmacy once the pills are running low.
According to the company, Harvard Medical School, Duke Business School, and a number of “major pharmaceutical companies” are running randomized controlled trials to quantify the impact of GlowCaps on specific populations, conditions and therapies.
For more on Vitality’s GlowCaps, read the company’s press release here
Tags: ABI Research | NASPE | Polar | WiFi | wireless healthcare | wireless sensors |
As summer draws to a close the once budding wireless health industry now has a substantial crop of statistics to pick through thanks to a number of recent surveys and research reports just published by various firms. Here’s a look at wireless health by the numbers:
Wearable wireless sensors are set to grow to more than 400 million devices by 2014, according to ABI Research.
A recent survey from PricewaterhouseCoopers found that 73 percent of consumers would use biometric electronic remote monitoring services to track their chronic condition or vital signs.
The revenue from worldwide sales of WiFi-enabled healthcare products will reach nearly $5 billion in 2014, according to a recent report from ABI Research.
Global wireless sensor networking services will be a $6 billion market worldwide by 2012, according to research firm ON World.
According to a recent report from Parks Associates, the U.S. market for wireless home-based healthcare applications and services will grow at a five-year cumulative annual growth rate of over 180 percent and become a $4.4 billion industry in 2013.
About 70 percent of physical education programs in K-12 schools use pedometers, while about 39 percent of physical education programs in K-12 schools use heart rate monitors, according to a recent survey conducted by NASPE and Polar.
The Center for Connected Health estimates that there is about 20 or 30 percent of the population where text message reminders will be very powerful.
An “unofficial study from New York and New Jersey” that found that five in seven Medicaid patients carry a smartphone.
It has truly been a summer of numbers and many of them point to a big opportunity for wireless healthcare.
Tags: AllOne Mobile | Apple | blood pressure | Cleveland Clinic | EMR | HealthVault | iPhone | Microsoft | PHR | Windows Mobile |
Mobihealthnews recently caught up with HealthVault’s Senior Global Strategist George Scriban to discuss how HealthVault fits into the wireless health discussion. Can mobile application developers synch their apps directly to HealthVault? Will Windows Mobile create apps that integrate to HealthVault? How does a medical device maker enable its users to send information to HealthVault? Scriban answered these questions and more in a wide-ranging interview that also covered whether HealthVault could be offered as a bare bones EHR for physicians, how HealthVault drives revenue within the health solutions group at Microsoft and hints at the global health market as the key opportunity for wireless in healthcare.
Mobihealthnews: At various events, many times I’ve heard Microsoft executives stress that HealthVault is a “platform” and not a personal health record (PHR). Can you provide a brief overview of HealthVault to start as a reference point?
Scriban: The problem that HealthVault is designed to address is one that we have heard from consumers for a long, long time: The information that they need to manage their healthcare and their families’ healthcare is fragmented. There was no one place to connect it all. HealthVault addresses that issue specifically by being able to connect to clinical systems, devices and application so that you have a single place to collect, store and share your personal health information. It’s also a platform for action around your healthcare. Since it is a platform it has these interfaces that allow third parties like the Mayo Clinic, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society and a number of other third party solutions providers to deliver services that really allow you to act on your specific health information. [Mayo Clinic] Health Manager gives you guidance, for example, based on your specific condition like your blood pressure instead of just general guidance information that might include an average range. That’s where HealthVault plays as a platform. It’s a platform for applications and it’s a platform where consumers can store all their health information.
I noted you said HealthVault is a consumer play — how does Microsoft reach consumers? I know HealthVault’s partner AllOne Mobile works through payers and another PHR provider, Dossia, works to offer its PHR through employers. How does Microsoft reach out to potential HealthVault users? Employers? Payers? Direct-to-consumer? Keep reading>>
Tags: 3D videos | anatomy | Apple | Blausen iPhone app | Human Atlas App | Iltifat Husain | Notes from the Clinic | Yousif Alkadhi |
By Iltifat Husain, MD/MPH student, MS IV and Yousif Alkadhi, MD, PGY1
One of the toughest aspects of medicine is communicating medical conditions and procedures to patients who have limited medical knowledge through the use of only words. With clinic times becoming shortened, this communication is often under strain. The new 2.0 version of the Blausen Human Atlas application aims to help providers with this type of communication. This app allows medical professionals access to a vast library of 3D video animations and images that aid in explaining medical conditions to laypersons.
The Blausen Human Atlas, made by Blausen Medical Communications, and available in the App Store for $19.99, has been in the AppStore for a few months, but the new 2.0 version is a big update. In their description of the Human Atlas in the App Store they state that the recently released 2.0 version includes 150 3D animations, a medical glossary with over 1,500 terms, 1,200 detailed still images, 360 degree rotatable 3D human figures, and the ability to purchase additional smaller atlases. Of note, this is not a stand alone application and an Internet connection is required in order to access the medical glossary, images, and videos. In the following review, we’ll go over a brief summary of how the app works and how applicable it is to healthcare settings using our own experiences with the application over the past few days. Keep reading>>
Tags: fitness | heart monitor | NASPE | physical education | Polar | wireless health |
According to a recent survey of K-12 teachers conducted by the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE) and Polar, 51 percent of teachers said technology increases student motivation during physical education classes. The survey also found that 59 percent of teachers said that technology helps teachers better communicate with the school and district administrators about students’ overall health and fitness. About 60 percent of teachers used the data from health technology like pedometers, heart rate monitors or other devices for their assessment and grading. Here are the commonly used technologies, according to the survey:
70 percent of PE programs use pedometers
39 percent use heart rate monitors
32 percent use exercise games like Dance Dance Revolution or Nintendo Wii Fit
A total of 1,375 physical education teachers participated in Polar’s survey, which was conducted between between May 28 and June 15, 2009. Of those teachers 1,164 K-12 physical education teachers completed the survey. Polar noted in its press release that childhood obesity rose 37 percent between 1998 and 2006, according to a recent CDC report. Keep reading>>
Point-of-care educational videos iPhone app: Houston-based Blausen has introduced its Blausen Human Atlas 2.0 iPhone app. The company created the app with help from CodeMorphic, an iPhone application developer. The app provides 3D videos for point-of-care education for 150 common medical conditions and treatments.