These days, when healthcare meets wireless communications, a heart patient in a US city gets a call from his doctor who is concerned about his latest ECG data received a few minutes ago from the patience’s wireless monitor device. A woman has a car accident, and right at the moment of the collision, personal vital sign information is sent by the car’s wireless system to the emergency services, to give her the treatment she needs. An elderly couple receives reminders to take medications three times daily via their mobile phones.
Previously, the extent of wireless communication’s contribution to saving lives was the emergency number or a doctor’s pager. Today, critical information from patients, family members and caregivers is getting to healthcare providers more quickly and vice versa. This acceleration is bringing fundamental improvements to prevention and treatment of our most significant health risks.
In just the last few years, advanced technologies such as 3G wireless voice and broadband have transformed the delivery of healthcare services and created countless new possibilities for patient care. Medical professionals can now use instruments to achieve patient-centric tasks such as remote/home-based patient monitoring, wireless ordering and tracking systems for medications, and receiving medical data via wireless devices in real time.
In short, wireless technologies can now be used to help people before they get to the hospital (or even prevent them having to be hospitalized), while they are in the hospital and after they have been discharged.
The key benefit is the individualized healthcare experience, with a focus on preventative rather than reactive healthcare. 3G wireless technology can now connect patients, caregivers and physicians at all times.
Patient data can be viewed by the patient and caregiver, and be reviewed remotely by his or her doctor. Patients and their families receive input from their healthcare provider and, at the same time, can monitor health performance and use that information to adjust behavior -- a technique called “course correcting.” Wireless sensors, currently in the marketplace, can also track important vital signs such as blood sugar, blood pressure, sleep state and even caloric intake and expenditure.
Technological advances in wireless monitoring will allow many elderly people to retain their independence and live at home monitored by wireless devices, rather than having to give up living at home for assisted living facilities. Similarly, heart patients undergoing cardiac rehabilitation will be able to do so in their own homes while their heart rates are constantly monitored. In case of an emergency, these devices send updates to medical technicians before they arrive on the scene and to the doctors in the emergency room.
Of course, the most direct beneficiary of wireless healthcare is the consumer. New solutions, such as wireless biosensor Band-Aids and glucose monitoring mobile phones, give people a more personal, effective and real-time healthcare experience. Qualcomm has already collaborated with its partners to bring to market significant healthcare-related solutions, including phones for the elderly (Jitterbug), asthma and diabetes management (BeWell Mobile Technology) and wireless pills (Proteus Biomedical).
The PillPhone is a mobile phone application that sends timely medication reminder messages and provides easy access to a drug information database. In the near future, innovations such as “smart pills” or “ingestible event markers” will report when a pill is taken – using tiny, embedded RFID chips -- helping manage medication usage better. Fitness and diet trackers will also help to track an individual’s lifestyle and fitness status.
Increased access to wireless healthcare services will provide an inexpensive way to manage one’s own healthcare needs. Wireless monitoring products, such as Corventis, (about the size of small bandage and taped to the chest) keep tabs on heart rate and sends electrocardiogram information to the patient’s mobile phone. This allows people, especially those with congestive heart failure, to monitor their heart condition, send vital information to their physician and possibly pre-empt hospitalization.
Advances in wireless healthcare have most significantly impacted developing countries, especially in under-served communities hundreds of kilometers from urban hospitals and health facilities. Patients in remote villages either have too little access to communication with healthcare professionals or, at best, must spend valuable time travelling to distant medical facilities for diagnostics and treatment. Even if this can be done, many simply cannot make the journey back for follow-up results and treatment. 3G mobile healthcare tools are often the most effective way to address the lack of medical facilities and dearth of medical practitioners in rural areas.
The new personal health performance market is an integrated ecosystem of innovative technology that will bring health, wellness and fitness applications to mobile devices.
Wireless technology provides patients and caregivers with greater freedom, physicians with access to improved, timely information, and society with lower healthcare costs. Consumers who have already made wireless communications an integral part of their lives – via entertainment, business and social networking – are likely to be eager adopters of technology which will keep them healthier and potentially help them live longer, more fulfilling lives.
Don Jones is VP of business development for Qualcomm Health & Life Sciences