Millions of people around the world suffer from chronic illnesses like diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease. These individuals could greatly benefit from the Bluetooth SIG’s latest objective, which is to enable health-related devices to work with consumer electronics products.
The Bluetooth SIG recently announced the creation of a Medical Devices Working Group. The group consists of 19 member companies including IBM, Intel, Motorola, Nonin Medical, Philips Electronics, and Welch Allyn. The group will work together to establish a Bluetooth Medical Device Profile, which will help to further integrate the use of Bluetooth technology into the medical, health, and fitness markets. The new profile will allow health-related devices to communicate with PCs, cell phones, PDAs, and various other consumer electronics devices. Currently, there are medical devices that use Bluetooth technology, however most are not compatible with other manufacturer’s devices.
Robert Hughes, chair of the new Bluetooth SIG Medical Devices Working Group and a senior wireless standards architect in Intel's Digital Health Group, states: "Health-related devices in the home, such as weight scales, blood pressure monitors and exercise equipment, which implement the new standard will be able to send information wirelessly to Bluetooth enabled PCs or cell phones so that users can monitor their health information or share this information with a doctor or fitness coach anywhere in the world."
"With the price of healthcare continually rising, the need exists to cut medical expenses. Many of the use cases supported by the Medical Device Profile will minimize the need for costly hospital visits and enable early detection of potential health problems reducing expensive treatments," said Michael Foley, Ph. D., executive director of the Bluetooth SIG. "Because of its worldwide availability, existing pervasiveness in mobile phones and laptops along with low power, low cost and security features, Bluetooth technology is ideally suited for medical devices that will provide a better quality of life for patients while reducing the cost of healthcare."
The new profile is expected to be available for use in devices in the first half of 2007. The profile will work with all current versions of Bluetooth technology, as well as the future Ultra-Wideband version.
Posted May 22, 2006 by BlueTomorrow.com Editorial Staff
| Comments |
|
