By David Niewolny

As I discussed in my previous post on the connectivity challenges of medical devices, the value of diagnostic tools are limited by their correct use and, ultimately, how patient data is stored, reported and transmitted.  Historically, most devices could only display data at their point of use, or record many days worth of data that needed to later be reviewed for abnormalities.

Two key chronic and wide-spread health care conditions – cardiac disease and diabetes care – are prime contenders to evolve existing technologies into wireless-enabled devices. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of deaths globally.

According to the World Health Organization, approximately 17.5 million people died from cardiovascular disease in 2005, or about 30% of all global deaths. In this Huffington Post article, ”The Disease that Will Affect Half the Nation by 2020,” Andrea Pennington points out that diabetes, though not as lethal, affects 27 million people in the United States today and is predicted to affect 50% of Americans by 2020. The average healthcare expenses in the US for people without a chronic disease, such as cardiac disease or diabetes, are approximately $4,400. But for people with a chronic disease, the cost nearly triples to $11,700, and for those patients with complications, the average annual cost rises to a staggering $20,700. These two markets, which have enormous costs associated with managing chronic care and disease complications, may be the first to adopt new technologies, and also have the most to gain from the benefits of remote patient monitoring.

An Ounce of Wireless Prevention

Of course, encouraging the citizens of the world to live a healthier lifestyle and avoid chronic medical conditions such as cardiac disease, diabetes and hypertension, would save the planet billions. For those individuals already suffering from diseases, education and self-management is a key step in improving health outcomes and the quality of life in these patients. This includes a focus on self-care behaviors, such as healthy eating, maintaining an active lifestyle, and, most importantly, regularly monitoring vital signs such as cardiac and blood sugar data. But patient compliance is a challenge. Health care professionals have enough difficulty in getting patients to take daily meds, let alone check and report their key vital statistics on a regular basis.

Thus, adding wireless connectivity to a monitoring device is an emerging trend that can vastly improve patient compliance. Wireless connectivity enables physicians and other medical workers to remotely monitor patients, while also significantly improving user compliance/user experience of diagnostic medical devices. Improved, remote monitoring also holds the promise of significantly reducing the cost of managing chronic diseases by ensuring regimen compliance, and by having the potential to detect the early warning signs of disease and complications.

A wireless remote monitoring device can take many forms, but most consist of a wireless sensor connected to a medical device like an ECG, heart monitor or glucose meter.  These medical devices can connect wirelessly via a Personal Area Network (PAN) established for the end user, such as a home Wi-Fi or mesh network. In turn, the network can then send patient data to doctors, nurses and/or other health care professionals via an Internet-connected Application Hosting Devices (AHD), such as smart/mobile phone, tablet computer, laptop/desktop PC, or even a set-top TV box. AHDs can be configured to communicate this data to the Internet via either a wired (Ethernet) or wireless (cellular) signal. In addition to medical professionals, patient data can also be archived in a storage location such as an electronic medical record (EMR)/personal medical record (PMR). There’s also the potential to capture a patient’s vitals and/or instant test results (glucose, triglycerides, cholesterol, etc.) via a medical ‘kiosk’ that could be co-located within hospitals, doctor’s offices, pharmacies, or even a shopping mall or airport.

Continua Health Alliance

An industry organization that is helping to drive the wireless medical device movement is the Continua Health Alliance. This non-profit, open industry organization of healthcare and technology companies joined together in collaboration to improve the quality of personal healthcare.  For the past two years, the Continua Health Alliance has been working towards the development of guidelines for the Personal Area Network (PAN) interface. Device designers have a wide variety of options when it comes to choosing a PAN wireless protocol.

As of today, Continua supports use of ZigBee and Bluetooth wireless technologies, and later this year will add to the mix the new Bluetooth Low Energy technology.

Freescale’s Technology Commitment to Connecting Medical Devices

Technology companies such as Freescale Semiconductor are leading the effort to enable wireless medical device designers to create innovative, new form factors and speed their products to market.  Freescale offers reference designs for wireless-enabled media device components, complete with device schematics and sample code, which are available for download at http://www.freescale.com/medical.  The site includes information on Freescale’s Medical Kiosk introduced in June 2010 and Freescale’s Telehealth Design based in an i.MX powered Tablet PC scheduled for release in June 2011.

The coming year should bear witness to an accelerating pace of innovation in the connected medical device world. Technology holds the promise to vastly improve not just patient compliance, but also help them forge a better relationship for managing their care with doctors and other health care providers. Being constantly in the dark about our vital health measures will give way to better patient education and more informed decisions regarding our bodies. Connected medical devices and other emerging technologies will benefit us all by building new bridges between patients and health care professionals, which in turn, has tremendous potential to lower the total cost of health care for us all.