Future Now
The IFTF Blog
Healthcare continues to go mobile
My dinner companion last night was telling me about someone he knows who wears some kind of heart monitor that uploaded his information in real-time, and that if there was a problem, he would get a call from his doctor. "That sounds like CardioNet to me," I exclaimed. He looked at me oddly, wondering why I would know such a random thing. Meanwhile, I was thinking to myself, "Wow, I am only two degrees separated from someone who is actually using this cool piece of mobile health technology."
This morning, I learned that AT&T is making a move into the mobile health care space with its announcement of "anywhere, anytime availability of vital caridac information. It is partnering with MedNet, a provider of cardiac monitoring products and surveillance services, to help doctors and patients wirelssly monitor heart arrhytmias via Blutooth-enabled cell phones across AT&T's 3G and EDGE wireless networks. According to the AT&T press release, "Until now, patients using Mednet heart monitors utilized a toll-free number and had to place their monitoring device near a landline phone receiver to send a signal to a central monitoring center." A landline phone receiver? How old school!
This all follows on the heels of the recent announcement that Apple's new iPhone OS 3.0 platform will support all kinds of mobile health applications, devices, and services. Application developers will be able to sync medical devices like blood pressure monitors via both Bluetooth and USB. As reported by MobiHealthNews, a representative from Johnson & Johnson's Lifescan, which makes blood glucose monitors, demonstrated a new iPhone app
that lets users upload glucose readings from their connected blood glucose monitors to their iPhone. The app then
lets users send their readings and a message about how they’re feeling to caregivers like their parents, children or physician. The glucose reader app also includes a meal builder and insulin schedule for easy tracking by tagging readings as pre- or post-meals. The iPhone app can even estimate, based on diet, how much insulin is needed after each meal. The app also shows glucose levels in a chart form and lists each previous reading.
I have written about several consumer and physician-oriented iPhone health applications in the past. But I have to say that the speed with which mobile health devices, services, and applications in general are being developed truly blows me away.