[Telehealth opportunities for monitoring patient information gaining momentum.]

Wellingborough -- The impact of the economic downturn and the ever-growing cost burdens the healthcare industry have taken on, has had somewhat of a positive effect on driving opportunities for the use of wireless technologies within the healthcare industry forward. By investing in telehealth opportunities, a new positive pro-active approach, offers potential cost and time saving benefits when monitoring patients who are suffering from chronic diseases and/or ageing independently.

A number of medical device and mobile handset manufacturers are beginning to invest in telehealth and associated services, which could provide the support that is needed to drive these cost saving initiatives. Even Apple’s iPhone is jumping on the healthcare bandwagon, by introducing a new revolutionary application which enables the user to monitor their blood pressure and glucose levels. Thus, with the support from a number of smart phone manufacturers, which are already Bluetooth enabled, it, seems inevitable that Bluetooth will become dominant in yet another industry.

However, alternative technologies being considered by the Continua Health Alliance are beginning to make headway within this market; Home health hub manufacturer AT&T have invested in Zigbee’s healthcare device application profile and ANT technologies are being used in a number of supporting heart rate monitors and mobile phone applications. With this in mind, Bluetooth technology may not have an easy ride as it first thought.

The choice of technologies available for integration within these devices, is vast. Is it really a case of one size fits all within this industry or is one technology perhaps more suited to a particular application?. The report recently published by IMS Research “Wireless opportunitites in Remote Patient Monitoring Devices”, discusses and forecasts the potential for a variety of wireless technologies to be integrated within remote consumer healthcare devices such as blood pressure, blood glucose, heart rate monitors and pulse oximeters.

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