The magazine Start-up recently published an overview of the wireless health industry but wrote it as a wake up call for medical device makers. Here's the paragraph that really boils down what's been going on in wireless health:
"The wireless revolution in health care won't just add another gadget to the toolbox of medical product manufacturers. Wireless health is a trend that sees the consumerization, systematization, globalization, and the economies of scale made possible by information technology disrupting the practice of medicine and medical markets. What began, six years or so ago in the hands of medical device companies like Royal Philips Electronics, and Medtronic, and CardioNet as "remote monitoring," a way for companies to reach patients with chronic diseases in their homes, is rapidly snowballing into a new paradigm for improving care, increasing access to care, and making care affordable. This new wave in medicine is being driven by outsiders -- by wireless providers like Qualcomm, the cell phone manufacturers Nokia and Apple Computer, Microsoft and other software companies, and manufacturers of internet networking equipment like Cisco -- that are simply leveraging their enormous installed bases to get into new high-growth markets in health care."
The article also bulleted out the changes that wireless brings to medical devices and patient care in general. The piece ends with a quick interview with Proteus Biomedical CEO Andrew Thompson. Be sure to check out the rest of the article, which was reprinted over at MedicalDevicesToday.
