Wednesday 23 February 2011

Will the iPod Nano watch impress the healthcrowd?

Easy to use
Easy to wear
Convenience for the win.

And it doesn't look like a medical (or other stigmatizing) device. Acceptance is guaranteed because such a shiny device is a 'wannahave'.

I wonder how long it will take before you can use Facetime on it.
With a GPS inside you will 'warned' when a friend is near, when you should get medicine from a nearby pharmacy, which subway to take, ...
You could communicate with relatives, doctors, ...
Notifications will appear when to take your medicine, when to go to the doctor, ...

And the real winner would be to integrate different monitoring solutions.

Source: GottaBeMobile -> iPod Nano as a watch is awesome, but does not impress the ladies

Tuesday 15 February 2011

What damage could a Healthphone do?

If Garmin can sell a GPS that can do voice too,

alas not very successful,
what are the chances of a health monitoring device 'that can do voice' too?

I imagine a ruggedized device with long battery life,
large + bright touchscreen, a decent camera, accelerometer, GPS 
and -most important- the equivalent of a Swiss Knife in connectivity: bluetooth, zigbee, ant, IR, Wi-Fi, NFC, barcode, RFID, ...

Should consider the device as a medical Toughbook, but vastly improved and much smaller.

I'm on the lookout!

Image -> Imprint Talk (have a look at their tripple flip design too)

Monday 7 February 2011

WESC or Louis Vuitton in the wireless sensor industry

Recently I was looking at 2 mhealth business plans, in particular the parts about sensor design.
The sensors should be wearable to guarantee permanent monitoring.
What struck me was that both companies were looking at "patient acceptance" as a HUGE hurdle for sensor sales.
Looking at the design of their devices, I understood their problem better: "They are UGLY!!!".
The devices had that typical "designed by a medical professional from the former USSR" signature.

If you want to solve patient acceptance, let Louis Vuitton or WESC take care of your design.

The burden of being sick and the necessity to be monitored can be worsened by making you wear ugly or uncool devices, especially with children.
Parents want their sick kids to grow up like 'normal' children.
If you can give these children a sensor that is cool to wear, this coolness might even 'lighten' the situation a bit for that child.

All types of wearable, unobtrusive sensors will have a great future because of simplicity and ease of mind.
Nick Hunn already gave fine examples like doorknobs and toothbrushes for monitoring, but why don't we also use helmets, clothing, wigs, earphones, scarfs, seats, ...?
I'm convinced that if you trow in more designers, this will make the sickness easier to wear (ha!).

Fashionistas for healthcare!

Thursday 3 February 2011

The Health Care Blog: Physician Executives Should Not Ignore How Smartphones Will Transform Healthcare

Physician executives who ignore smartphones and their healthcare applications will miss the most important disruptive technology trend in the next five years. Physician executives who understand how smartphones will transform the industry for providers, payers, patients, and employers will thrive in their careers.

A great round up of mobile solutions for healthcare, excellent research numbers and relevant quotes from different players in that field by Kent Bottles (@KentBottles).

Haven't read about the love that people feel about their device(s) or "second self". Now i'm even more convinced that upcoming baby boomers will embrace mhealth (broad definition).

Tying together the healthdata that will come through a giant firehose will indeed be very challenging. Companies that will specialize in health data integration and aggregation (slide 25 & 26: http://www.slideshare.net/BartCollet/mhealth-is-huge) will prosper.

Now i'll have a look at some examples/companies that Kent posted and i'm not familiar with ... yet.

Over & out!