Blog | News & Information on Wireless Services & Telecommunications
Posted: 05/04/10 by Mobile Future Team
One of the really exciting emerging uses of mobile technology involves healthcare. This holds remarkable potential for everything from the pretty straightforward (automated text messages that remind you to take your pills) to the truly remarkable (wireless in-home monitoring for seniors that send an alert if there’s a chance they’ve fallen).
Now for any expectant Moms, there’s even a pregnancy app. WCBS in New York recently profiled this method, which allows doctors to monitor vital signs such as the blood pressure and heartbeat of mothers and their infants using mobile technology. If something becomes abnormal, the technology alerts the doctor.
Incidentally, if you need help choosing a name, here’s a handy app that gives you about 15,000 options.
Posted: 04/01/10 by Mobile Future Team
At CTIA Wireless 2010 last week, the newest and coolest mobile products and services were on display. There were lots of interesting ones, including many amazing mHealth applications.
Here’s a look at some innovative apps:
PillPhone
A mobile application that helps consumers better manage their medication.
LookTel
An application that helps the visually impaired recognize objects.
MedApps
A mobile outpatient monitoring solution that proactively alerts doctors and nurses to potential health problems.
Posted: 03/23/10 by Mobile Future Team
As I’m confident you’re aware, the House of Representatives voted to pass healthcare reform Sunday evening after one of the most grueling and public legislative debates in our nation’s history. Earlier this morning, President Obama signed the bill into law. Whether you consider yourself conservative or progressive, Americans are united in their belief that this sweeping piece of legislation will have far-reaching effects on a variety of industries and enterprises.
The wireless industry is no different, as is illustrated by the mHealth initiatives playing a leading role at this week’s CTIA show in Las Vegas. And thankfully for consumers, the adage “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” is not applicable to the exciting new wireless health technologies being unveiled daily.
The passage of healthcare reform in conjunction with the recent release of the FCC’s National Broadband Plan provides for expanded opportunities in wireless health technologies, an industry whose market will reach an estimated value of $4.6 billion by 2014. According to a report (summarized here) released Friday by CSMG, the mHealth market is currently expanding at a compound annual growth rate of 25%, with the potential for increased acceleration over the next few years.
Wireless health technologies posses the capacity to revolutionize the way American’s access healthcare. Providing services like low-cost sensors and wireless remote monitoring that translate into the right care at the right time, mHealth can help drive down costs and make overall industry operation more effective.
Posted: 03/15/10 by Mobile Future Team
Did you forget to take your medicine today?
Well, a new wireless technology can help remind you if you did.
A St. Louis pharmacy-benefit manager is testing the "GlowCap," a pill container that is equipped with a wireless transmitter that notifies patients when it is time for a dose of their medicine.
Daniel Touchette, assistant professor of pharmacy practice at the University of Illinois at Chicago, explains the importance of the wireless transmitting technology:
"Only about half of patients who are prescribed a medication for a chronic condition are still taking the drug regularly after a year and the most effective programs combine education and reminders".
Posted: 02/23/10 by Mobile Future Team
“Along with the State Department, the Pentagon and aid groups, as well as Haiti’s leading cellphone carrier and countless volunteers, the Coast Guard is part of an emergency contact network for Haitians to send text messages requesting aid.”
Amid all the destruction, according to this New York Times report, mobile phones are helping aid workers’ rescue efforts in Haiti. The decision to focus on text messaging resulted from the damage Haiti’s telecommunications system suffered from the earthquake. Broken transmitters and overloaded networks made telephone calls nearly impossible. However, text messaging was still available.
Among the successes according to a Coast Guard volunteer cited by The Times, text messaging helped identify a tent city that the American military and relief workers were previously unaware of.
Posted: 02/09/10 by Mobile Future Team
Last week, the White House unveiled a great step forward in the fight to reduce birth defects. It's a public-private effort called the Text4baby campaign and according to the Associated Press, it is the U.S.'s first free, pre-natal education program to use mobile phone text messages.
Expecting parents should text "BABY" (or "BEBE", for Spanish texts) to 511411. They'll receive weekly texts geared to the baby's birth date that cover nutrition, immunization and birth defect prevention. The texts, which have been vetted by government and nonprofit health experts, continue through the baby's first birthday.
An added benefit: Several major wireless carriers have waived text fees for the service.
For more information, click here
Posted: 01/20/10 by Mobile Future Team
Out of the devastation in Haiti have come extraordinary stories of survival. One amazing first-person account is of Dan Woolley, a Denver-native, who found himself trapped beneath the rubble of his hotel in Port-au-Prince. The tool that saved his life? His iPhone. Through his wireless connection he was able assess his injuries and diagnosis a broken leg.
Woolley used the light from his iPhone to show him his injuries and diagnosed it properly as a broken foot. Then, he used the instructions from the app to treat the excessive bleeding from cuts on his legs and the back of his head.
Furthermore, he was able to figure out his location within the building using GPS and find an elevator shaft—which lead him to safety. A true testament of personal ingenuity in the face of catastrophe.
Posted: 12/14/09 by Mobile Future Team
With the exception of
reducing the Digital Divide, probably the greatest social benefit from wireless
technology is its potential to improve access to more affordable
healthcare. We've blogged a lot about
this (see here, here and here) and now
thanks to Venuri Siriwardane at the Newark Star-Ledger, there's
even more evidence.
As
an example, Siriwardane cites fuzzy bedroom slippers with pressure sensors in
the soles which wirelessly transmit movement data, including information that
the wearer may be more likely to fall.
Of
greater potential benefit, researchers are pouring research funding into the
development of cost-effective wireless audio and video consultation services so
doctors may interact remotely with patients in real time.
The
reason for this is not hard to discern:
Remote
patient monitoring alone can generate between 20 percent to 40 percent in
savings, said Chris Wasden, managing director of health industries strategy and
innovation at PricewaterhouseCoopers....
Wasden [explained] that telehealth is much more common in developing
countries such as India, where cell phones enable people to receive health care
in remote areas that once lacked access to modern medicine. "They've already
developed the ability to deliver mobile health care to their people, but we're
behind the times on that."
Better
healthcare. More affordable access. That's the mobile future.
Posted: 12/04/09 by Mobile Future Team
As Washington focuses on
healthcare legislation, here's a sobering statement from Dr. Pauline Chen,
author of the New York Times' "Doctor & Patient" column:
"Nonadherence,
or the failure to follow medical advice, is the most important cause of
organ rejection in long-term transplant
survivors."
Teenagers are at
especially high risk, she writes this week, citing studies suggesting that a
majority of teen liver transplants fail and that teen patients are four times
more likely than adults to take their medications at the wrong time or to forget
to take them.
So how to reach
today's hard-to-reach teens? Last month, researchers at researchers at
Mount Sinai Hospital in New York published a study showing the remarkable
effectiveness of texting in improving success rates among young liver transplant
patients.
During a
year-long test, patients receiving texts were more likely to take their
medications. One result: while 12 of the young people experienced rejection
episodes in the previous year, only two did so during the
study.
The next time a text message appears on your phone, it may be your doc giving you an important
reminder.
Posted: 11/17/09 by Mobile Future Team
The
New York Times reported this
month on an engineer who is converting cell phones into devices that diagnose
diseases. Dr. Aydogan Ozcan, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at
UCLA, has successfully adapted cell phones for screening in places far from
hospitals, technicians or diagnostic laboratories. Dr. Ozcan's devices provide a
simple solution to a complex problem by replacing the need for a traditional
microscope with a basic cell phone camera.
One prototype, a slide holding a finger
prick of blood can be inserted over the phone's camera sensor. The sensor
detects the slide's contents and sends the information wirelessly to a hospital
or regional health center. The phones can detect the asymmetric shape of
diseased blood cells or other abnormal cells, or note an increase of white blood
cells, a sign of infection.
Dr. Ozcan has formed a company, Microskia,
to commercialize the technology. Some of the company's products would be
adaptations of regular cell phones. For phones without cameras, or phones too
compact to modify, the company has different designs, including a simple box
with a sensing chip that can be plugged into a cell phone or laptop with a USB
cord.
As explained in The New York Times article, the devices
are compact in part because they have eliminated the central element in a
microscope, its lenses. There is no need for lenses in these devices because
magnification can be done electronically. For this electronic system of
magnification, inexpensive light-emitting diodes added to the basic cell phone
shine their light on a sample slide placed over the phone's camera chip. Some of
the light waves hit the cells suspended in the sample, scattering off the cells
and interfering with the other light waves. When the waves interfere, they
create a pattern called a hologram. The detector in the camera records that
hologram or interference pattern as a series of
pixels.
"The holograms are rich in information,"
Dr. Ozcan said. "We can learn a lot in seconds," he said. "We can process the
information mathematically and reconstruct images like those you would see with
a microscope."
Page 1 of 3 pages 1 2 3 >
comments | Permalink
Tags: Mobile Applications, Mobile Health, Smartphone, Text message