Discussion on:

Smartphones and M2M for mHealth

Our major Western carriers (Rogers & Telus) have M2M divisions that focus on government, health care etc. I work as a regional BDM for one of their main device manufacturers and get called to visit their clients with their reps quite often.

I have yet to see a single iPhone rollout in Health Care...in Canada, as our health care department is pretty heavily regulated and iPhone/iPads do not meet their minimum device standards for security, functionality etc. Until very recently, being intrinsically safe has been a key reason why (any consumer focused smart phones from anyone) haven't been used. If they can't be sterilized, they can't be used, which one would expect from ANYTHING being used in a health care centre/hospital etc. There are doctors and nurses in smaller medical clinics that may carry one, but it's not certified and still shouldn't be used.

For the last 8-10 years they have had tablets and handhelds that meet the stringent standards and offer things such as patient medication tracking and hospital equipment tracking (RFID) but also things like ports for connecting blood pressure monitoring equipment etc. Such devices are generally Windows based, cost thousands each, are intrinsically safe, can be scrubbed with a caustic cleaning solution, submerged and soaked like all other medical equipment must be.

So while I can see this becoming something of US focus and maybe even popularity, especially as self diagnosis and self medicating is so big there, for obvious reasons, I don't see it working too well in other markets where medical is regulated a lot tighter, such as UK, France, Canada, Australia etc.

Those other markets are too heavily regulated and demand a lot more than a consumer toy, for use in the actual medical facilities anyway. Consumers, well that's a different animal. Consumers can be sold anything, whether they need it or even want it or not, consumers simply consume what they are told to, like the busy little buyers they are.

Unless the device can be sterilized and hardened it's not Certified for use in any Medical Environment here.

Small Medical Practices may use things like this but the reality is that if the Practice needs to meet Certification Levels to carry on their business they can not use things like iProducts.

Besides why would you personally buy any product like those listed in the blog when you can buy a wrist watch and do the same thing and it doesn't stand out. The idea of monitoring Blood Pressure and heart action is the need to constantly monitor these things so being able to remove and only use when you feel like it for patients other than Hypochondriacs is a waste of time and effort.

Of course the Hypochondriacs using things like this is a even bigger waste of time and effort as they convince themselves that they are close to death and eat up the Medical Practitioners time and Testing Facilities when it's a unnecessary action. Though if they start to Self Medicate to treat themselves they are likely to suffer Adverse Medical Outcomes which can be a great thing for the Medical Practitioners as they kill themselves and remove the time wasted in needing to treat them for their own stupidity.

As for a Blood Glucose Meter with a good one with a Life Time Guarantee being only $15.00 in the local Chemist why would you waste your time and money buying a add on for your iDevice when they are not calibrated to the strips being used? All Test Strips have a life expectancy and need to be used within the time frame on the Box. They also come with a Calibration Plug to plug into the BGM to correctly report the Blood Glucose Levels. Getting the wrong or a incorrect reading on a device like this is worse than useless and can lead to adverse medical outcomes because of equipment errors.

Col