iPhone Datalogger Project

Goal: To use the iPhone to create a general-purpose broad-spectrum medical, scientific, or environmental sensor data store and forward unit.

Another way to look at this is as a Holter Monitor for continuous use by any person, with a real-time connection to their doctor or hospital.

Question: What kind of devices could be connected to a personal datalogger?

Medical

• Blood pressure
• Pulse Ox
• ECG/Holter
• Blood Chemistry Monitoring

Scientific

• Temperature
• Pressure
• Experimental
• Environmental Monitoring

Video and Recordkeeping

• Personal Videologging
• Daily event or condition diary
• On-site News

Remote Telemedicine Avoids Infant Travel

Just an example of the amazing cost savings potential of telemedicine, with smartphones like the iPhone being a prime example:

AET's Telemedicine Solution Provides Real-Time Echocardiogram Consult, Saves Costly Transport of Newborn Infant

Read more: http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/press-releases/aets-telemedicine-solution-provides-real-time-echocardiogram-consult-saves-costly-tra#ixzz0WLH99RSf

GE Healthcare seeks new class of wireless patient monitors

http://www.fiercemobilehealthcare.com/story/ge-healthcare-seeks-new-class-wireless-patient-monitors/2009-09-08-0

Good news, some big players coming into the market!

GE Healthcare is trying to cut the cords on patient monitors with a new
effort to develop wireless monitoring systems called body sensor networks.
Working in conjunction with parent company General Electric's GE Global Research
division, GE Healthcare is looking to replace the traditional wires that connect
sensors to monitors with wireless sensors that send vital signs to bedside or
patient-worn receivers...

Excellent News About Growth of Telemedicine Field

On the political and business side, the telemedicine field is growing and changing rapidly. It's an exciting time.

In a blog authored by Microsoft chief medical technologist, we hear that Medicare is now reimbursing for telemedicine devices. This is crucial for the growth of the market, and shows investors that it's a good technology to invest in.

I recently received notification from a professional colleague that suggests Medicare is beginning to see the light. Dr. Thomas Gumprecht is an ENT doc practicing in the Seattle area. More than a decade ago, he began lobbing private insurers to remove contract language that forbids additional billing for cognitive professional services provided to patients by electronic means including the telephone. He actually got the insurers in our area to agree that it was OK to charge for these services so long as any patients receiving them had been notified well in advance, and in writing, that they would be charged.
Now it seems that the federal government may be giving a green light to docs who want a similar arrangement for patients receiving Medicare. According to Dr. Gumprecht, “CMS now permits direct billing of electronic services----and it is important to say ALL ELECTRONIC SERVICES---PHONE, FAX, EMAIL, VIDEO, TEXTING----because logically it is a professional medical service being rendered electronically and the exact mode should not be one or the other but a continuum between all of them. With this breakthrough, most other carriers will fall inline with the CMS approach, and at least permit direct billing of patients”.

In an article in e-Week blog, we hear about the projected growth of the telemedicine market:

An ABI Research report predicts that about 15 million mobile and wireless health devices will be in use by early 2012 for the purpose of remotely monitoring the well-being of elderly or at-risk people, despite patchy insurance coverage for these systems. Using embedded cellular connectivity, so-called telehealth devices can collect vital signs wirelessly from a range of external devices such as weight scales and blood pressure cuffs.

OS 3.0…Support for External Hardware, Finally!

After long frustration with limited ability to transfer sensor data in and out of the iPhone, our hopes are restored again.

The iPhone OS 3.0 announced today contains explicit support for external hardware devices. The Apple video specifically talks about medical data. Of course there’s a lot of work still to be done to figure out the external accessory protocols, developer rules and limitations, available hardware tools from other vendors, etc. But the key is, Apple has started the momentum towards external iPhone sensors, and we believe it that momentum has a long way to run.

Related Product: Airstrip

Airstrip is one of the successful iPhone-Medical healthcare product lines. Their recent video gives a clear understanding of how powerful it can be to put real-time medical data in the hands of physicians:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1170760210&play=1

and a link to their upcoming Cardio product.

Health Pal from Medapp

The company MedApps has a very interesting product called Health Pal...a dedicated medical device upload and archiving system, with similar functionality, but not connected to the iPhone.

Nice! We'd like to learn a lot more about this system.

Microsoft Healthvault as Database

Microsoft HealthVault seems to be the first choice for mobile device data uploads, so we'll be looking at this as our design standard.
Here is their description of how devices connect:
A growing number of health and fitness devices—heart rate monitors, glucometers, blood pressure monitors and more—connect with HealthVault using HealthVault Connection Center. Those with the “Works with HealthVault” logo meet Microsoft’s highest standard for HealthVault connectivity. Just complete a few simple setup steps to upload data from these devices to your HealthVault record.

iPhone as Holter Monitor

One correspondent said that what we’re building here is essentially a Holter monitor…a device that records, over time, the ECG or other medical data for a single person. That’s exactly right, except for 2 differences:

1. Our goal is not just to record ECG, but as many other biophysical variables as possible

2. Unlike a Holter monitor, the iPhone can send the data on the fly to a remote database

3. The iPhone serves as the diary of activity performed

From Wikipedia:

In medicine, a Holter monitor (also called an ambulatory electrocardiography device), named after its inventor, Dr. Norman J. Holter, is a portable device for continuously monitoring the electrical activity of the heart for 24 hours or more. Its extended recording period is sometimes useful for observing occasional cardiac arrhythmias that would be difficult to identify in a shorter period of time. For patients having more transient symptoms, a cardiac event monitor which can be worn for a month or more can be used.\

Much like standard electrocardiography (ECG), the Holter monitor records electrical signals from the heart via a series of electrodes attached to the chest. The number and position of electrodes varies by model, but most Holter monitors employ from three to eight. These electrodes are connected to a small piece of equipment that is attached to the patient's belt, and is responsible for keeping a log of the heart's electrical activity throughout the recording period.

Code Blue -- Wireless Medical Sensor Project

http://fiji.eecs.harvard.edu/CodeBlue

We are exploring applications of wireless sensor network technology to a range of medical applications, including pre-hospital and in-hospital emergency care, disaster response, and stroke patient rehabilitation (see the related Mercury project as well).

Recent advances in embedded computing systems have led to the emergence of wireless sensor networks, consisting of small, battery-powered "motes" with limited computation and radio communication capabilities. Sensor networks permit data gathering and computation to be deeply embedded in the physical environment. This technology has the potential to impact the delivery and study of resuscitative care by allowing vital signs to be automatically collected and fully integrated into the patient care record and used for real-time triage, correlation with hospital records, and long-term observation.