This week, a new partnership was born for the benefit of mHealth across the pond.

Advanced Health & Care and GENTAG announced the market launch of a fully integrated wireless Near Field Communications feature cell phone.

The device is capable of remotely monitoring care worker visits in private homes. 4,000 GENTAG GT-601v2 NFC phones have already been deployed in the UK since June 2012, Wednesday’s announcement reads.

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It’s been announced that Independa’s Artemis sensors, which monitor patient’s vital signs, will now be integrated into Qualcomm Life’s 2net cloud-based remote-monitoring platform.

The new integration will now allow those using Independa’s line of sensors to transfer data from scales, blood pressure cuffs, and glucometers to 2net, where doctors can easily and quickly monitor and analyze the readings.  By integrating their platforms, Qualcomm and Independa hope to create interoperability between remote-monitoring devices and applications.  ”Our arrangement with Qualcomm Life raises the industry bar for flexibility and aggregation, knocking down major barriers to telehealth adoption,” said Independa CEO Kian Saneii.

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AirStrip Technologies, a company known for its mobile patient monitoring solutions, announced recently a new addition to its platform that allows real-time access to Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems.

“For the first time, within a single mobile solution, physicians have real-time access to medical device data such as ECG waveforms as well as all other current and historical patient information imperative to clinical decision-making but formerly locked away in difficult to access, often disparate records repositories,” the company explained in a press release.

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It’s been announced that the Mayo Clinic has once again teamed with mobile app provider Preventice to create an mHealth solution.  Unlike the last partnership the two organizations aren’t working on an app, but rather a remote monitoring device called “Body Guardian” — which is being developed to monitor irregular heart rhythms.

The new device is meant to be worn unnoticeable under one’s clothing and tracks heart and respiratory rates, ECG, physical activity and other vital signs.  Using the patients smartphone, the data is transmitted back to a physician.  The system can be setup to monitor regular rhythms and only send data back to a physician when irregularities and/or cardiac events are detected.

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It’s been announced that ActiveCare, a provider of telehealth and Personal Emergency Response (PER) solutions has entered an agreement to acquire 4G Biometrics — a company who’s technology helps healthcare and insurance providers, as well as employers, manage risk and reduce costs associated with employees diagnosed with diabetes.

Diabetes management, and chronic care management in general, remains a huge issue that mobile and digital technologies are aiming to streamline.  Diabetes trails only cardiovascular disease as the most expensive disease to treat.  4G Biometrics helps people with Diabetes manage their disease and avoid acute events that cost healthcare and insurance providers millions of dollars per year by providing near-real-time blood glucose monitoring through Bluetooth-enabled devices.  When specific data points with any irregularities are spotted, the information is instantly communicated to individuals/care providers based on profiles defined by medical providers.

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Helping reduce hospital readmissions is a large reasons for bringing digital and mobile health technologies to market, especially ones that allow patients to take more control over their care while at home and after they leave the hospital the first time.

That’s where remote patient monitoring comes in, and numerous companies large and small are entering the race.  It was announced that AT&T is teaming up with Intuitive Health to pilot a home-based remote monitoring solution that helps engage patients and family members in their own care, while seamlessly involving healthcare providers through integration with their clinical information systems.  The end goal for the pilot is to help reduce hospital readmissions and associated healthcare costs, while increasing quality of care and patient satisfaction.

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A new survey published recently by HIMSS and Qualcomm Life show that while consumers understand what remote patient monitoring is, only a quarter of those surveyed reported using one before.

In addition, only 16% of those surveyed had heard about remote monitoring devices from their healthcare provider, and 22% said they’d used such a device themselves in the past.  Just 8% said they currently used such devices as part of a fitness program and 5% said they were using such a device provided by a physician.  The survey included phone interviews with 125 American adults in January so the sample size wasn’t that large.  Still, the findings fall in line with similar research showing consumer awareness of the concept, but not the adoption to match.

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