"Very exciting," Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg said after describing a mobile clinical assistant tablet that Verizon Wireless recently approved in its Open Development Lab. Seidenberg's keynote here at the CTIA Wireless event in Las Vegas included a number of references to mHealth, including wirelessly connected blood glucose monitors.
Today, however, is scheduled to be the wireless healthcare day at CTIA with a keynote presentation by Scripps Health's Dr. Eric Topol and panel sessions focused on mHealth both in the morning and afternoon. The morning session, which includes Proteus Biomedical, iTMP Technology, Sensei, Entra Health Systems and mobihealthnews will focus on mobile applications in healthcare, smart pills, chronic disease management and the role of regulation in mHealth. Hope to see you there.
A number of "very exciting" wireless medicine and wireless healthcare start-ups are exhibiting their products at the show--many of which are Qualcomm partners and on display at the San Diego-based company's giant booth under a Health & Location banner. Here's a quick rundown of mHealth on display at CTIA:
Triage Wireless - This time last year, Qualcomm Ventures and other investors injected more than $20 million into Triage to help the company commercialize its wireless vital signs monitoring system, OmniScan, which measures blood pressure and other vital signs using wireless technology without the traditional cuff. We expect Scipps Health's Dr. Eric Topol, who is on Triage's board, to unveil Triage's new design form factor during his keynote today. Triage Wireless is still in clinical trials and working with the FDA for the final greenlight for their launch.
Vitality - According to some reports, Vitality was the show stopper of a pre-CTIA sneak peak event, called ShowStoppers, which took place Monday night. Vitality makes the GlowCap smart pillbox product, which glows different colors when a patient needs to take their medications. It sounds an alarm when ignored for more than an hour and after two hours will give you a call. The pillbox can interface over a number of different wireless and landline networks depending on the patient's connectivity situation at home, but it is embedded with a 900 MHz radio to transmit the data to its hub.
CardioNet - The only public company that is a pure play wireless medicine solutions provider. Also located at the Qualcomm booth, CardioNet is demonstrating its wearable, wireless cardiac monitoring system. Interestingly, CardioNet also uses a 900MHz link to interface between its body sensor and the corresponding pager-sized device that relays the information to Qualcomm's servers and onto the caregiver.
Omnilink - While Qualcomm didn't foster Omnilink's foray into wireless health like the other companies on this list, it is also located at the Qualcomm booth because its new wireless tracking service for Alzheimer's patients is running on a Qualcomm-powered handset. Nearly 70% of individuals with Alzheimer's that wander will do so repeatedly, and of those not found within 24 hours, up to half suffer serious injury or death. Omnilink enables caregivers to keep tabs on their patients.
Vocel - The company behind The Pill Phone application is also exhibiting at the Qualcomm booth. Pill Phone helps users to adhere to their medication regimens and also allows them to look up information on nearly all of the pills on the market. We caught with Verizon Wireless' John Maschenic last week to discuss Vocel and other pioneering mobile health applications.
