November 4th, 2009
How fast can remote monitoring move?
Remote medical monitoring, the use of sensors and networks to detect changes in patients and deliver alerts to caregivers, has been growing throughout this century. (Picture from Abledata.)
This week’s approval of an Alcatel-Lucent TeleHealth Manager by the FDA is just the latest 510(c) approval in a long line.
- RODA got approval for remote heart monitoring in 2002.
- St. Jude’s Medical has been getting remote monitors approved since 2004.
- Medic4All got approval on its VMS-01 telemedicine system in 2006.
- Medtronic has had heart monitors that can be pinged remotely for over three years.
- MedApps has been selling a remote diabetes monitoring system over the counter since 2007.
- ExpressMD got approval for its Electronic House Call system in April.
Not everything is rosy in this business, and not all the fault lies with government. Insurers are reluctant to reimburse, which makes no sense since these systems save enormous amounts of money. BIOTRONIK’s remote heart monitors have been approved to replace doctors’ visits.
Where Intel (and its new partner GE) can provide a service to the whole industry is by helping to streamline these approvals, from both industry and the FDA.
Electronics are insanely reliable. The links available between devices, base stations, and caregivers, via the Internet, are also improving thanks to Moore’s Law. You can even get remote health monitoring through WiFi.
What the industry needs to get past the analysts’ hockey stick graphs are standards. Technical standards, payment standards, approval standards. This is no longer rocket science, it’s not experimental.
Make it part of the technology mainstream, let remote monitoring benefit from Moore’s Law economics, and medicine will be truly transformed, in Internet time.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist since 1978, and has covered technology since 1982. He launched the Interactive Age Daily, the first daily coverage of the Internet to launch with a magazine, in September 1994. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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