Wireless Medical Blog

Dedicated spectrum for MBAN – a step forward or backward?

This is a guest post by my colleague Fraser Edwards who leads the Radio Systems group at Cambridge Consultants.  Fraser has worked in the wireless arena for the last 25 years and has worked in areas as diverse as high temperature superconductors, through leading development of the worlds first micro cellular medical telemetry system and ...

Will Smart Phones disrupt the telehealth market?

At latest count there were almost 6000 health apps for smart phones, with the iPhone leading the pack but Android based phones quickly catching up. An increasing number of physicians are now using smart phones to access medical information.  The newly launched iPad has gained significant following and has even made it into hospitals as ...

Wireless health – Part 1: How do we transmit all the data?

Please excuse me for introducing another term, ‘Wireless’, to the plethora of Mobile Health, Connected Health, Telehealth, etc. Paul explained in an earlier post here a while ago. But I’d like to focus on the mobility aspect of all the health applications, the reason why we want to make these applications wireless: Patients ...

Can wireless connectivity save Big Pharma millions?

As I strolled through the technical posters and exhibit stands at the Respiratory Drug Delivery (RDD) conference this year, I kept thinking about the hundreds of millions of dollars that pharmaceutical companies need to spend on new drug trials. With the FDA increasingly demanding more post-market data the costs are only going to increase unless ...

The Continua Health Alliance – where next?

Progress in telehealth and telemedicine has been limited by the lack of coordination and standardisation between device manufacturers.  To address this, in 2006 the Continua Health Alliance was formed with the aim of promoting an ecosystem of interoperable health devices. The Continua Health Alliance is a not for profit alliance of medical device manufacturers, technology ...

Why are telehealth hubs so expensive?

How do you create a cost effective telehealth hub for the home? That is the question that I have tried to answer in my work with Cambridge Consultants.
As a result we have developed telehealth hub solutions that minimise the hardware cost, and minimise complexity. As you may have seen from my previous blog posts on the overlap ...

Telehealth, Mobile Health, Connected Health, and now ECare – is there a difference?

Telehealth, telecare, telemedicine, connecetd health, mobile health, ehealth and now ecare. Is there a difference?

The truth is I struggle with these terms myself. When creating the content for Cambridge Consultants Wireless Medical web pages I can never be sure which of the terms will be relevant to our customers. While there may be some subtle distinction ...

Health2.0 Device and service blurs the lines with telehealth

Health2.0 has several definitions, but at its core has been the use of web2.0 consumer techniques to deliver health services online. The techniques and tools of Facebook turned to patient communities, or the recommendations systems of Amazon used to assist in the selection of treatment. “liked Ventolin? why not try Serevent?” or “Patients rated your ...

iPhone and iPad applications for mobile health solved by OS 4.0?

iPhone and iPad Bluetooth wireless hardware accessories present an opportunity to enable health services, but will the release of iPhone OS 4.0 enable the applications to be built?
iPhone OS 3.0 generated a lot of interest in medical applications. At the launch J&J Lifescan demonstrated a glucose meter sending data via Bluetooth to a diabetes management ...

Successful Business models for mobile healthcare

Is mobile health just another name for Telemedicine or Telehealth.Mobile phones take a central role in all our communications today, and there is no reason to think that this will be different for healthcare. What is the role of Mobile phone manufacturers and cell phone network operators in the future of health services. Where mobile device manufacturers and network operators can generate revenue from health services? Traditional telehealth business offers limited direct revenue for the handset manufacturer or the network operator. So why get involved? and how might they drive business?

Read on for my analysis of the oportunities….