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Sprint has announced its entry into the rapidly growing home health monitoring field.
The Overland Park, Kansas-based telecommunications giant has announced a partnership with longtime collaborator IDEAL LIFE that will connect the company’s cellular pod with wireless devices offered by IDEAL LIFE. The pod will use wireless machine-to-machine (M2M) communication technology to transmit information from those devices over the Sprint network to designated healthcare providers.
They’re not the only ones in the market. Verizon is working with Duke University on the development of mobile health monitoring devices, and late last year Qualcomm unveiled the 2Net hub and launched its new home healthcare unit, Qualcomm Life.
IDEAL LIFE’s list of devices includes the Gluco-Manager blood glucose meter, BP Manager blood pressure monitor and Body-Manager scale, among other products. The Toronto-based company first hooked up with Sprint about a year ago to develop wireless products for the home healthcare environment, joining several telehealth and mobile health vendors in the Sprint network.
Gary Rurup, business development and portfolio manager for Sprint’s Emerging Solutions Group, says the Sprint-IDEAL LIFE partnership offers an out-of-the-box, plug-and-play device that will allow patients to wirelessly synch devices and transmit data to caregivers and doctors. He says the solution is consumer friendly and easy to install and activate.
“The embedded piece really differentiates this,” he said. “It allows the end-user to continue to live life the way they want to live it, rather than being tethered to devices all over the house. … And it gives doctors insight into much more frequent and regular readings.”
“This gives them the ability to see the big picture,” he added.
Rurup says the hub will be marketed to hospitals and physicians interested in reinforcing the care plan beyond the walls of the hospital or clinic. By giving them a link to a patient’s vital signs and other data, taken whenever necessary in the home environment, they can monitor and adjust care plans, avert emergencies and recue the possibility or rehospitalization.
"Wireless M2M solutions present an opportunity to streamline healthcare and provide greater access to critical patient information at significantly less cost and effort," said Wayne Ward, vice president of Sprint’s Emerging Solutions Group, in a press release. "The potential to improve patient wellness and physician efficiency in an on-demand setting is just one example of how connected devices are fundamentally changing every aspect of the way we work and live."
"IDEAL LIFE's relationship with Sprint was forged early last year with the goal of expanding IDEAL LIFE's product portfolio to include embedded wireless devices," added Harvey Goldberg, IDEAL LIFE’s CEO. "This new offering continues that endeavor and is an example of how wireless technologies, combined with medical applications, can transform healthcare delivery.”
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