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.
A&D's press release explains that "the A&D Medical UA-767PBT-C automatic blood pressure monitor with Bluetooth wireless technology and the UC-321PBT-C precision weight scale with Bluetooth wireless technology were certified as conforming to the Continua Version One Design Guidelines, incorporating the Bluetooth Health Device Profile (HDP) and the ISO/IEEE 11073 data protocols. Compliance to these guidelines allows for interoperability between all Continua Certified devices and enables manufacturers to create health information systems easily and efficiently."
Cambridge Consultants, which, among other things, guides medical device companies through the Continua Health Alliance certification program, helped A&D attain certification by using Cambridge Consultants' Vena software platform. Cambridge Consultants has installed the Vena software platform onto the existing hardware and sensor of A&D's blood pressure monitor and weighing scales. Vena embeds the Bluetooth Health Device Profile (HDP), optimized for the secure transport of medical data, onto a single chip, according to the company.
Last month Chuck Parker, Executive Director of Continua Health Alliance, told attendees at Healthcare Unbound in Seattle, Washington that two different companies had already had their hardware cleared by Continua's certification process and should be announced soon.
"We're just waiting on the paper work," Parker said at the time.
Looks like A&D Medical was one. Who was the other?
For more on A&D's Continua certification, check out this press release.
For more on Cambridge Consultants' role in A&D's Continua certification, read the company's press release here.
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