9 Tech Innovations For Your Health
Wondering if you're having a cardiac event or suffering from a concussion? There's an app for that: Check out these promising health-related apps, gadgets, and ideas from the Digital Health Summit.
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The iPhone ECG is exactly what it sounds like: an electrocardiogram module that attaches to the back of an iPhone, plus an accompanying app. (There's also a new, credit card-sized module called the iCard ECG that will work with Apple's iPad and other tablets, as well with laptops and Android smartphones.) Created by Oklahoma City cardiologist Dr. David Albert, the single-lead mobile ECG has created a lot of buzz. In November, Scientific American included the product on its list of "world-changing ideas." The company has backing from the Qualcomm Ventures' Life Fund, among other investors. Qualcomm, Burrill & Co., and the Oklahoma Life Sciences Fund together provided a $3 million first round of funding last summer.
Albert loves to demonstrate the product in action by showing his own, live cardiac waveform to visitors by pressing the two metal electrodes against his chest, even through a shirt. The iPhone ECG does not have Food and Drug Administration approval for sale in the U.S. or a CE Mark for the European market yet, but Albert expects to gain regulatory clearance in the next few months. Once that happens, AliveCor will sell the device for $99. At that price, sales could be brisk. Albert expects interest from post-discharge cardiac patients and those with chronic heart ailments, as well as from healthcare professionals, including nurses and emergency medical technicians.
The iPhone ECG actually represents Albert's second foray into wireless electrocardiography. Back in 1997, Data Critical, a company Albert founded, took public, and eventually sold to GE Healthcare, earned FDA 510(k) clearance for its RhythmStat XL software that wirelessly transmits ECG data from a heart monitor to a palmtop computer. Albert had been thinking about connecting a single-lead ECG to a mobile device since then, but found that the right technology did not exist in the 1990s. Apple's introduction of the iPhone in 2007 changed that.
Another company Albert owns, Lifetone Technology, produces a fire alarm and alarm clock that wakes people up three ways: with an audible alarm, a flashing light, and a physical vibration from a bed-shaking module. The company says the product is effective even with hearing-impaired individuals.
The Basis wristwatch measures a variety of health factors, captures the information, and then processes and interprets it. It's one of the more comprehensive systems in this form factor.
For example, many products take a measure of heart rate. Some help count the steps a user takes during the course of a day. Others track calories. Basis Health And Heart measures heart rate, motion (using accelerometers), galvanic skin response, and skin and ambient temperature.
All of this data gets synced up to Basis (its "cloud service"), where the user can browse the information. Some of the data (motion and skin temperature, for example) gets interpreted as sleep; other data (motion and sweating, for instance) gets interpreted as exercise. The bottom line then is that this data isn't just interpreted individually, but taken and understood collectively.
The watch (and yes, it does tell time) uses a host of sensors to detect all of this, and it even includes an optical sensor that emits light into the skin at a particular frequency to determine heart rate.
There are some similarities to the much ballyhooed Jawbone Up, which was riddled with hardware problems shortly after it shipped. The idea is still a good one. The biggest problem with the Basis product is that the software side is completely browser-based. That works, but having that data in a smartphone app would also be good, especially for viewing the data offline, as so many products let users do.
At $199, it's not a bad deal.
Concussions have become a big deal in sports. No longer are athletes encouraged to "tough out" head injuries and get back in the game. Instead, professional leagues, schools, and amateur athletic organizations have developed protocols for identifying concussions and making sure individuals are symptom-free before allowing them to return to the field of play.
A CES app showcase outside one of the main exhibit halls at the Las Vegas Convention Center featured a $3.99 app for Apple iOS and Android devices called Concussion Recognition and Response. This product from PAR of Lutz, Fla., walks coaches and parents of young athletes through a checklist of concussion signs and symptoms, following protocols adopted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Concussions in Youth Sports initiative. Users can e-mail the results to health professionals to document the patient's condition.
The app also features a home symptom monitor for follow-up care and a workout routine to help injured young athletes get ready to return to action.
Ford recently announced some new partnerships for its in-vehicle health monitoring initiative and unveiled a new catch phrase: "The car that cares." The automaker showed a mock-up of a dashboard equipped with the Microsoft-powered Sync "infotainment" system connected to health-related smartphone apps and wireless, portable medical devices.
"Sync will be Ford's key technology supporting activities in the health and wellness sphere," Gary Strumolo, manager of infotainment, interiors, health, and wellness in the Ford Research and Innovation division, said during a presentation at the Digital Health Summit. Strumolo noted that many people spend hours at a time behind the wheel, making their cars a convenient and private environment for delivery of health and wellness coaching. "It's the only logical place for people to manage their health while on the go," he said.
During his presentation, Strumolo showed one photo of a prototype car seat with built-in heart rate monitoring, now being tested at a Ford research lab in Aachen, Germany. Data from the seat could, for example, create what Strumolo called a "driver workload estimate" to measure stressors that could affect safety. He said that Sync could automatically route phone calls to voice mail when stress exceeds a predetermined threshold.
Independa, featured in InformationWeek Healthcare's "12 Cool Tech Innovations To Keep You Healthy", brought something new to the show: Health Measures, a telephone-based system to complement the existing Artemis platform for wireless home-health sensors. Both work with Angela, Independa's touch-screen dashboard and communications hub.
The company also has announced a partnership with LG Electronics. Independa will offer Angela on LG's Pro:Centric commercial HDTVs, a move that CEO Kian Saneii said will make the system more attractive to long-term care and senior living facilities.
A far cry from the 1980s "I've fallen and I can't get up" panic buttons, today's mobile personal emergency response service (MPERS) devices include GPS locators, accelerometers to detect falls automatically, and embedded cellular chips to summon help even if the wearer blacks out and is unable to push a button.
One of the newest entries in the category of modern MPERS is Lifecomm, an Atlanta-based joint venture of Hughes Telematics Inc. (HTI), Qualcomm, and American Medical Alert, with HTI holding a majority stake. Lifecomm started in 2005 as a Qualcomm-led partnership to develop a cellular phone-based healthcare service, but actually shut down in 2009. The company was reconstituted in its current form in May 2010.
Lifecomm demonstrated its MPERS in three formats: a wristwatch, a pendant, and a belt clip, each of which supports two-way voice and data communication over the Verizon Wireless network. When the user pushes the button--yes, there still is a panic button--or the system detects a fall, a call goes out to Lifecomm's call center, which can then conference in emergency medical services. The Lifecomm representative stays on the line until EMS arrives, then will call the device wearer's designated contacts.
The MPERS can measure wearer activity and inactivity, too, so family members and caregivers can track movement patterns though a Web portal, according to Lifecomm vice president for business development Richard Lobovsky.
The products will hit the market in the second quarter via value-added resellers, Lobovsky said.
The Ion Proton Sequencer, from San Francisco-based Life Technologies, makes this list because it might just represent a landmark step toward fulfilling the promise of personalized medicine. Designed to sequence the entire human genome in one day for $1,000, this tabletop model decodes DNA with a semiconductor chip, making it much faster and significantly less expensive than optical gene sequencers.
Life Technologies is setting the price for the Ion Proton Sequencer at $149,000, when larger, slower optical devices cost half a million dollars or more and take weeks to return results. Perhaps that is why >em>Forbes columnist Matthew Herper called the device "today's coolest new gadget."
Expect the Ion Proton Sequencer to hit the market by the end of 2012, pending FDA approval, of course.
Recently cleared by the FDA, the Telcare BGM blood-glucose meter helps with diabetes care by sending readings directly from the smartphone-sized monitor over T-Mobile's network to an online, Web-accessible database that patients can share with their physicians. Bethesda, Md.-based Telcare says it is the "world's first" cellular-enabled glucometer. An available iPhone app allows for mobile management.
Created by physician entrepreneur Dr. Jonathan Javitt, the Telcare BGM hit the market this month at a list price of $150, significantly higher than a traditional glucometer. Discounts are available with a subscription to purchase Telcare test strips.
Javitt told InformationWeek Healthcare that the Telcare database can connect to electronic health records and personal health records. Interoperability is important to him; Javitt chaired the health committee of the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee during the George W. Bush administration, which produced a 2004 report that paved the way for the creation of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.
Earlier this year, insurance giant UnitedHealth Group announced partnerships with several vendors of mobile health apps. Some of those products were on display at United's booth, as was the new version 2.0 of OptumizeMe, a gaming/challenge smartphone app from the insurer's Optum subsidiary.
Still largely unproven in the marketplace, health challenges have become popular among app developers and others, like United, who are looking to keep people healthier and reduce health expenditures. OptumizeMe is a "platform for health achievement," according to Nick Martin, United's vice president of innovation, research, and development. Users can challenge each other to meet whatever health or fitness goals they specify, such as running 5 miles or lowering their cholesterol levels.
Like Zynga games that have captivated millions of Facebook users, OptumizeMe awards badges for achievement. "It's incredibly motivating," Martin said, while also acknowledging that "badges aren't for everyone."
Earlier this year, insurance giant UnitedHealth Group announced partnerships with several vendors of mobile health apps. Some of those products were on display at United's booth, as was the new version 2.0 of OptumizeMe, a gaming/challenge smartphone app from the insurer's Optum subsidiary.
Still largely unproven in the marketplace, health challenges have become popular among app developers and others, like United, who are looking to keep people healthier and reduce health expenditures. OptumizeMe is a "platform for health achievement," according to Nick Martin, United's vice president of innovation, research, and development. Users can challenge each other to meet whatever health or fitness goals they specify, such as running 5 miles or lowering their cholesterol levels.
Like Zynga games that have captivated millions of Facebook users, OptumizeMe awards badges for achievement. "It's incredibly motivating," Martin said, while also acknowledging that "badges aren't for everyone."
The iPhone ECG is exactly what it sounds like: an electrocardiogram module that attaches to the back of an iPhone, plus an accompanying app. (There's also a new, credit card-sized module called the iCard ECG that will work with Apple's iPad and other tablets, as well with laptops and Android smartphones.) Created by Oklahoma City cardiologist Dr. David Albert, the single-lead mobile ECG has created a lot of buzz. In November, Scientific American included the product on its list of "world-changing ideas." The company has backing from the Qualcomm Ventures' Life Fund, among other investors. Qualcomm, Burrill & Co., and the Oklahoma Life Sciences Fund together provided a $3 million first round of funding last summer.
Albert loves to demonstrate the product in action by showing his own, live cardiac waveform to visitors by pressing the two metal electrodes against his chest, even through a shirt. The iPhone ECG does not have Food and Drug Administration approval for sale in the U.S. or a CE Mark for the European market yet, but Albert expects to gain regulatory clearance in the next few months. Once that happens, AliveCor will sell the device for $99. At that price, sales could be brisk. Albert expects interest from post-discharge cardiac patients and those with chronic heart ailments, as well as from healthcare professionals, including nurses and emergency medical technicians.
The iPhone ECG actually represents Albert's second foray into wireless electrocardiography. Back in 1997, Data Critical, a company Albert founded, took public, and eventually sold to GE Healthcare, earned FDA 510(k) clearance for its RhythmStat XL software that wirelessly transmits ECG data from a heart monitor to a palmtop computer. Albert had been thinking about connecting a single-lead ECG to a mobile device since then, but found that the right technology did not exist in the 1990s. Apple's introduction of the iPhone in 2007 changed that.
Another company Albert owns, Lifetone Technology, produces a fire alarm and alarm clock that wakes people up three ways: with an audible alarm, a flashing light, and a physical vibration from a bed-shaking module. The company says the product is effective even with hearing-impaired individuals.
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