Telehealth Monitor

To his frustration, Steven Schwartz often encounters patients who have no idea what each of the pills they’ve been popping is called.

“But usually they can tell you what it looks like,” the Georgetown University Medical Center family practitioner said. “They might say it’s a blue, triangular pill for hypertension.”

Armed with an iPhone, Schwartz is able to play detective.

He uses an application called Epocrates to input pill characteristics, such as color, shape and clarity. The software replies with a list of medications and images that match those criteria, allowing him to deduce what the patient is taking.

via Doctors and Medical Students Embrace Smartphones – washingtonpost.com.

A recent study showed that 64 percent of doctors use smartphones, such as an iPhone or a BlackBerry. Medical schools, such as Georgetown University and Ohio State University, are beginning to give them out to students.

And I can certainly see the allure. They’re more powerful than PDAs, and there’s a wealth of medical applications that are being written for the devices. More importantly, they can replace several devices – namely, the PDA, phone, and pager – and instead of a Batman-like belt of electronic tools, doctors can simply carry one.

via Will smartphones replace the pager? | iPhone | BlackBerry | iPod Touch.

Popular medical blogger Dr. Kevin Pho, also known as KevinMD, has a noteworthy post on the growing popularity of smartphone use in hospitals and smartphones’ “inevitable” displacement of pagers. A recent study by Manhattan Research found that 64 percent of doctors use smartphones like BlackBerrys or iPhones. Each of those platforms support mobile applications that provide pager functionalities.

BlackBerry partner Wallace Wireless offers a pager service called WIC Pager. Wallace points out that since many healthcare workers already carry a smartphone, “a single device solution reduces the costs and resources necessary to manage the traditional pager and cellphone combination.” WIC Pager can leverage cellular networks as well as in-building WiFi. It also “allows for quick responses by implementing a one-click call back feature,” which trumps legacy pagers one-way flow. The service also offers “real-time reporting on all pager alerts” so administrators can keep track of messages, too.

via Prediction: Smartphones to replace pagers in hospitals | mobihealthnews.

Heart patients will be able to check their electrocardiogram on an iPhone, using a new system demonstrated by Deutsche Telekom subsidiary T-Systems at the Cebit trade show in Hanover, Germany.

The system consists of a measuring device, which sends the results to a central server using GPRS (General Packet Radio Service). The server can then forward the results in real-time to, for example, an iPhone.

The server is used to enable more people to access the data, including patients and their doctors, according to Victor Grogger, head of solution development at T-Systems Austria. They would both log in with a user name and password to get access to the data.

T-Systems also demonstrated a system for measuring blood sugar levels using a Nokia 6131 equipped with support for NFC (Near Field Communications).

NFC is a wireless communication technology with a range of a few inches, and it is considered easy to use and quick to set up. It’s mostly talked about as a technology to enable payments using the mobile phone

However, in this case the technology is used to send results from the measuring device via the phone to a server. The user pushes a button on the measuring device, holds the phone up to it and the results are automatically sent.

As the cost goes up hospitals and doctors will increasingly have to rely on products like these to make health care more efficient, according to Grogger.

via Health Monitoring Comes to the IPhone – PC World.

RS TechMedic BV, a Dutch based company with eight years experience in medical device development, today announced the release of their iPhone Telemedicine Application. With this iPhone Telemedicine Application physicians can monitor vital signs of ambulant and home-care patients at any time from anywhere. This product offers a significant increase of patient comfort, fast recognition of heart problems and a reduction of hospital and healthcare cost .

Dyna-Vision® is a small and portable device, with the dimensions of a PDA. This reliable and sophisticated device monitors up-to 10 clinical parameters through non-invasive sensors attached to the skin. The measurements include 12-lead ECG, Heart Rate, Heart Rate Variability, RR-times, Respiration, Plethysmogram, Oxygen Saturation and some derived parameters.

Dyna-Vision® is equipped with an internal GPRS module which automatically transmits the recordings to the secured Dyna-Vision® server. Physicians can connect to this server with a computer to analyze the recordings or to monitor real-time vital signs of the patient.

The latest add-on to the list of unique features is the iPhone Telemedicine Application. With this tool, physicians can use their iPhone to monitor the vital signs of a patient at any time, any place. It can only be used by licensed physicians after registration with RS TechMedic as a certified user. Making use of a mobile phone to monitor patients is relatively inexpensive and makes it much easier for physicians to offer telemedicine solutions to their patients. 

There is no geographical limit for the technology. The patient can use Dyna-Vision® to send an alert to a physician, who can then instantly check the vital signs and advice accordingly, also during travelling, working and exercising.

R.A. Brest van Kempen, CEO of RS TechMedic BV says: “With our easy-to-use solution we now came to the point where patients can truly rely on a physician’s assistance whenever needed. With Dyna-Vision®‘s iPhone Telemedicine Application we took away the complex logistics of other products for heart monitoring where patient’s have to visit telemedicine providers for hook-up and analysis. We were able to design a highly secured system with maximized data protection. We believe that our technology will assist physicians in providing the best possible care in ambulant monitoring and home-care situations”.

T-mobile says: “Dyna-Vision® is by far the most advanced telemedicine solution in the market. That is why T-mobile in the Netherlands decided to partner with RS TechMedic to market this product. We see Dyna-Vision® as the first real-time telemedicine solution that will have a huge impact on immediate patient care and telemedicine in total. By offering Dyna-Vision as a monthly subscription we are able to take away the initial investment for physicians and hospitals thereby making the use of telemedicine more attractive ”.

Dyna-Vision® is now available for the European market. It is very suitable for patients suffering from heart failure, arrhythmia, pulmonary disease, apnoea and neurological problems. Dyna-Vision® iPhone Telemedicine Application will be officially launched during the Medica, to be held from November 19-22 in Dusseldorf, Germany.

RS TechMedic wants to contribute to the ongoing improvement of patient care by making this remote patient monitoring available. The company aims at the international market leadership for this type of equipment within the next 3 years. A number of multinationals have shown interest in the technology and RS TechMedic is now installing its European dealer network.

RS TechMedic BV is a privately held company developing high-tech medical devices and medical software. The staff consists of hardware and software R&D engineers with years of experience in medical device development. The company is based 30 minutes from Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport.