The number of gateways used in telehealth applications will increase to more than 1 million in 2014 and to about 3.6 million in 2018, according to a new report from InMedica, a division of IMS Research.
While InMedica does not define what a "gateway" is in its press release, Medical Connectivity Consulting's Tim Gee presented on wireless body area networks and gateways at the Medical Connectivity...
"It’s stupid of insurance companies to insist on an inferior device costing 10 times as much," Roger Ebert wrote in a letter to the Editor of the New York Times last week. Ebert, the famous film critic, was responding to a feature the Times had recently published about Medicare only covering dedicated text-to-speech devices, even though those devices are typically far more expensive than multi-...
Digital sales and health marketing company Physicians Interactive (PI) acquired mobile medical content publisher Skyscape late last week for an undisclosed sum. PI stated in the press release announcing the acquisition that the deal gives its partners access to Skyscape's more than 1 million users. Skyscape's mobile apps and PDA programs for health practitioners compete with similar offerings...
Despite its long history in the medical industry, Palm has launched its latest device with no medical applications. We have written about Palm's legacy as a platform of choice for doctors and other health workers who have depended on the company's PDA for the last decade, but with the company's new smartphone, the Pre, it seems Palm did not have them in mind.
Well, Palm CEO Ed Colligan did have...
There is little benefit to be gained from deciphering the ever-moving target of teen speak, which at the present time is greatly influenced by abbreviations used when text messaging. "IDK my BFF Jill," as the popular Cingular wireless commercial once taught us. For the healthcare industry, though, some wireless industry semantics are worth exploring at the risk of remaining known as the industry...
For every iPhone skeptic I've met in the health industry (these are the types that like to stake the fate of wireless health on the "not everyone has an iPhone" argument), I've met at least two execs at big companies that pinpoint the launch of the 3G iPhone last year as the tipping point for their company's decision to explore wireless health. So, hype or not, it's inspired this industry.
Ever...
Earlier this week, AirStrip Technologies announced that the FDA had granted the company's iPhone application, AirStrip OB, clearance to market the app to physicians via Apple's App Store. AirStrip OB enables obstetricians to use their iPhones to remotely access real-time and historical waveform data for both the mother and the baby. The data set includes heart tracings, contraction patterns,...
Speech recognition company Nuance announced its Dragon Medical 10 solution, which it claims is both 20 percent more accurate and nearly twice as fast as its last offering. The latest software is available in the UK and Ireland to start. New features include medical vocabularies, hidden mode, extended mobile dictation support, and advanced voice shortcuts and templates.
Big news from New Hampshire...
According to a new study from Turkish researchers, doctors and nurses' mobile phones could act as a reservoir for tough-to-kill "superbug" bacteria like methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The report, penned by Faculty of Medicine at the Ondokuz Mayis University, found that 95 percent of the phones tested were contaminated with bacteria like MRSA, which can cause serious staph...
Kimmy Moore, MPH Contributing Editor
These past few weeks the use of current evidence-based information regarding patient care has become a controversial topic. By definition, practitioners' use of EBM is necessary to provide optimal care. This fact has been demonstrated repeatedly with measurable clinical results. Recently, services offering well-maintained databases on PDAs and desktops have...
