Continua Health Alliance develops first end-to-end connected health solution
BEAVERTON, Ore. Wireless management of such health devices as blood glucose meters and blood pressure monitors took one step closer to becoming reality Monday with the Continua Health Alliance announcement of the first end-to-end connected health solution based on the Continua architecture.
IBM, Nonin Medical, and Vignet will demonstrate the end-to-end solution this week at the Consumer Electronics Show, and illustrate how data from consumer health devices can be transmitted to a variety of destinations, including hospitals, medical offices and patient information systems.
In the demonstration, data from a Continua Certified Bluetooth-enabled wireless pulse oximeter from Nonin Medical will be sent to a P.C. manager running the Vignet Connected Health Services platform using the Continua device interface standard. The manager will upload the data to an IBM server using the Continua WAN interface standard. From there, the IBM server can send the data, using the Continua interface, to various service providers such as healthcare facilities, disease management services or personal health record services.
“IBM is committed to enabling connected home health solutions such as remote patient monitoring, which have great potential to improve patient outcomes and deliver more affordable health care,” stated Katherine Holland, GM for IBM Global Life Sciences. “Demonstrating an end-to-end implementation of the Continua architecture is an important milestone, and IBM is pleased to partner with Continua members to build an ecosystem of interoperable, personal connected health solutions.”
The publication of the Continua Health Alliance Version One Design Guidelines last year paved the way for Continua members to develop compliant connected health products and services. The Continua interoperability guidelines specify how to use existing standards to build interoperable personal healthcare solutions. The group’s next design guidelines, expected in the first half of 2010, will include two wireless technology standards for low power radios and will enable new devices, additional use cases and extend the capabilities of devices in the Continua Health Alliance ecosystem.