Tags: Accu-Chek | Bluetooth | Continua Health Alliance | GlucoseBuddy | Roche Diagnostics | USB | wireless health |
Diabetes management tools just got a step closer to medical device interoperability.
A few hours after news broke that A&D Medical’s Bluetooth-enabled blood pressure cuff and Bluetooth-enabled weight scale had received Continua Health Alliance’s stamp of interoperability, the organization announced that Roche Diagnostics’ Accu-Chek Smart Pix Device Reader, which currently interfaces with blood glucose meters and insulin pumps to transfer data from the devices to the user’s computer, gained Continua certification for USB connectivity.
The Smart Pix device connects to the computer with a USB cord but it interacts with the medical devices via infrared. Once the data transfers to the computer a report appears in the user’s default Internet browser to be saved later, printed out or simply viewed on screen. Roche says the system helps diabetics make timely and well-informed decisions about day-to-day self-care.
While the Roche announcement is not a wireless health move, some of Roche Diagnostics’ educational software under the Accu-Chek umbrella has been included in MYLEstone Health’s popular iPhone application, Glucose Buddy. Roche is also on Continua Health Alliance’s board of directors, so clearly it is carefully putting together the necessary components for a robust suite of wireless health products.
For more on Roche’s Continua announcement, visit the Continua site here.
Tags: ANSI | Kaiser Permanente | RFID | wireless healthcare |
Kaiser Permanente’s innovation centers: The Sacramento Bee has a feature on Kaiser Permanente’s various innovation centers, which test a number of wireless health technologies. The San Leandro center, for example, is outfitted with patient rooms, mock-ups of workstations, operating rooms, and a “living room” that includes demonstrations of home health products.
“By 2015, the home will become the hub of care,” said KP Senior Technology Manager Sean Chai. More
Wireless health feature in WSJ rehashes old news: The Wall Street Journal has a feature that highlights companies in wireless healthcare, but really just retreads old ground. The comment section, however, includes a worthwhile discussion: “In the medical system, one party is demanding services, while another is paying, while another is profiting. No technology is going to change that triangle,” one reader wrote.
“The problem is not increased cost,” another wrote in. “it’s increased care resulting in increase cost. Improving our health care requires constant investments in new technology to solve newly understood problems.” More
ANSI approves a healthcare standard for RFID: The American National Standards Institute and the Health Industry Business Communications Council recommended that 13.56 Mhz High Frequency (HF) be adopted for healthcare item-level tagging, because its range is less likely to cause interference (EMI) with other medical devices. More
Tags: A&D Medical | blood pressure monitor | Bluetooth | Continua Health Alliance | Intel | Nonin | pulse oximeter | weight scale |
The Continua Health Alliance just certified two new Bluetooth-enabled medical devices for interoperability: San Jose-based A&D Medical’s Bluetooth blood pressure monitor and weight scale. Continua’s stamp of interoperability means that the devices will work with other Continua certified products, which enables users to know at the point of purchase that their medical devices will be able to connect with each other.
Continua now counts more than 200 companies in its alliance, which is led by Intel’s Rick Cnossen. Previous to this announcement Continua had certified the USB and Bluetooth-enabled versions of Nonin’s pulse oximeter. The additions of the two A&D Medical products doubles Continua’s certified product count, which now stands at four devices. Continua’s board of directors includes representatives from Cisco, Intel, Medtronic, Kaiser Permanente, Panasonic, Partners Healthcare, Philips, PwC, Roche Diagnostics, Samsung, Sharp, Qualcomm, Ascension and CA. Keep reading>>
Tags: Apple | Clinical Trials 2.0 | Healogica | iPhone app | Pancreative Action Network | Steve Jobs | StopWatch Media | TrialX |
The market for clinical trials-focused mobile applications just got competitive and complicated. During the past week two new contenders announced applications to rival the buzzworthy StopWatch Media app, “Clinical Trials,” which has long been the only iPhone application to offer clinical trial data.
Healogica just announced its app, interestingly called Clinical Trials 2.0, which costs only $0.99, a far cry from Stopwatch Media’s original $24.99 pricetag and even its recently dropped $9.99 pricepoint. Does $0.99 still sound like too much? Well, Healogica announced that it would be donating half the proceeds from the purchase of its app to the Pancreative Action Network in recognition of Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ continuing battle with pancreatic islet cell cancer.
Another app on the horizon is TrialX, which looks to match users up with the potential clinical trials based on their personal health record information in Microsoft HealthVault and Google Health. Certainly ambitious.
Take a look through this slide show for some screen grabs and videos of these apps in action. Keep reading>>
Tags: AllOne Mobile | CMS | Health 2.0 | landline | Medicaid | wireless health | World Healthcare Congress |
“People are now texting more than they are speaking on their mobile phones and this has to tell us something in the healthcare industry.” said Frank Avignone, Senior Director, AllOne Mobile at the World Healthcare Congress’ Wireless Health event in Boston last week. Avignone noted that wireless only households (homes with no landline phones) now make up more than 18 percent of U.S. households. (Some studies peg the percentage at north of 20 percent.)
“When we first started down this path of wireless for healthcare there was a lot talk about the devices not being advanced enough or that there were not enough people who own mobile phones that can manage [these services],” Avignone said. “Now there are about 303 million people in the U.S. and 271 million wireless subscriptions. If you take into account the number of people in ICU who cannot use a mobile phone and the number of children — I have a 7-year-old who can out-text me with her eyes closed — that can’t use a mobile phone that’s an impressive number: That’s almost two devices for every man, woman and child in this country. That’s a channel we can see growing and continuing to grow not just here but around the world.”
Avignone also pointed to what he described as “an unofficial study from New York and New Jersey” that found that five in seven Medicaid patients carry a smartphone. ”Talk about a population we can save some money with,” Avignone said. Keep reading>>
Tags: CME | iPhone | Medscape | Medscape CME | Medscape Mobile | WebMD |
Last week WebMD highlighted its newest iPhone offering, Medscape Mobile during its quarterly investor call, which included some interesting metrics for the company’s advertising revenues, CME program growth and general Web traffic numbers. Given the comments about Medscape Mobile’s success to date, it seems like the company is looking toward its mobile app for future revenue growth.
“On the mobile front, earlier this month, we launched Medscape Mobile. It’s our first mobile application for physicians. Medscape Mobile provides the most comprehensive drug information clinical reference tools, medical news and continuing medical education on a mobile device,” Wayne Gattinella, CEO, president and director of WebMD told investors on the company’s recent quarterly call. “Launched initially for the iPhone and iPod Touch, it’s the only medical application to deliver specialty-specific news and medical education that leverages our assets from Medscape’s award-winning professional editorial team. I’m really pleased to tell you that after just two weeks, Medscape Mobile has already become the number one most downloaded medical application on Apple’s App Store.”
A representative from WebMD confirmed to mobihealthnews this week that (like everyone else) the company is not exactly sure how specifically Apple’s AppStore ranks the most downloaded applications in a given category. While downloads seems to be the obvious metric, the time frame Apple uses (most downloaded during the past 24 hours, during the past week, or during the past month?) is still undisclosed.
“New development is underway to launch new product enhancements, as well as additional mobile platforms for Medscape Mobile, including the BlackBerry later this year,” Gattinella said. ”Our consumer iPhone app that launched last November is also yielding fast growth with now over 750,000 download. We see the mobile market as an important opportunity for future growth as we leverage the strength of whether these brand across multiple consumer and physician platforms.”
Keep reading>>
