The potential of Bluetooth low energy was eloquently demonstrated at this week’s ISPOO conference in Germany, when the winners of the first year of the Bluetooth Innovation World Cup awards were announced. The competition has been running for the last year, inviting individuals and companies to submit ideas for new sports and fitness products that will be made possible by the new Bluetooth low energy standard.
mHealth – Mobile Monday Amsterdam (Part 1)
Watch the Video | See the Slides
The organisers probably weren’t expecting snow, but it didn’t stop the audience turning up en masse to Mobile Monday’s mHealth meeting in Amsterdam last week. The presentations were far from chilling; mHealth is moving from a position of relative obscurity a year ago, to something that every network operator feels they need to have. Vodafone, AT&T and Telefonica have already declared that it’s a key part of their strategy. The potentially still-born US health reform and accompanying monetary stimulus plans have convinced many more that there’s money to be made from it, and 400 plus attendees were keen to understand where those opportunities may be.
Obama – Raising the cost of Personal Healthcare?
Today should have been a day for celebration, as the US Senate passed the Healthcare bill. But two strands of it – the device tax and product registry seem aimed to make barriers for the deployment of personal healthcare.
I don’t think anybody would argue against the need for reducing the cost of healthcare. There are obviously many efficiencies that can be brought into the system, whatever and wherever that system may be. But most agree that increasing the individual’s focus on wellness is an important foundation to that cost reduction. To make that happen we need to make personal health devices cheaper and more accessible.
That’s where this bill betrays itself. Hidden amongst the headline grabbing stuff are two clauses that may well help to slow the speed at which these devices come to market – a tax on each and every device, and a proposal for the FDA or similar body to administer an Orwellian control over what comes to market, potentially stifling innovation. If this really is a bill for reforming healthcare, that’s a strange route to take.
Bluetooth low energy – the Momentum Builds
It’s been a good week for Bluetooth low energy. At times it’s felt like a long, slow path since it was first announced as Wibree in October 2006, but that feeling is changing as the standard is coming to completion. This week saw the first Bluetooth low energy conference take place in Munich where chips vendors were showing off demos, whilst on the other side of the world, at the ARM Techcon in Santa Clara, there were more live demonstrations of the technology.
The mood of the industry has become increasingly upbeat. It was noticeable in Munich that a significant number of companies have moved from cautious interest to being serious about starting to deploy it. The questions that they are asking have changed to the practical ones of qualification and access to test equipment. That change in mood was reinforced by the Bluetooth SIG announcing that the specification is on course to be released this December.
The Bluetooth low energy standard can be confusing at first. Although it carries the name Bluetooth, it is a completely new radio with a completely new protocol stack on top of it. It has been designed from scratch to allow developers to add connectivity to products that only want to send small pieces of data on an irregular basis, but with such low power consumption that it can run on coin cells. The companies attending the Conference in Munich have understood that difference and are keen to exploit the new products and service models that Bluetooth low energy offers.
We need a Manifesto for Consumer Health and Wellness
At the Continua Health Alliance summit in Boston this week, most of the speakers are talking enthusiastically about the amount of Government momentum for reform of the healthcare system. Keynote speakers from all areas of the medical industry are telling us how things will change.
It’s not a new message, albeit it has been revitalised by the prospect of the Obama billions. The physicians believe that they can heal themselves, or at least the system they work in. So it came as a breath of fresh air to see a posting that popped into my inbox from Joe Macaluso on Real Health Reform. It argues that the only way we will see any real reform is if it’s done by patients, without the support of Congress or the medical industry.
Over in Europe, the EU is running a debate on Consumers and Health, asking for contributions to a seminar in Brussels at the end of the month. I’d been thinking about this for some time and had come to the conclusion that the most useful thing that the EU commission could do would be to look at how to change the regulatory playing field. That’s necessary to let patient-based groups start to take healthcare and even prescribing into their own hands. To achieve that I think we need a Manifesto for Consumer Health, that provides a safe environment for disruptive developments. By coincidence I’d just finished writing my thoughts on that, which I was posting to the EU Consumers and Health site as Joe’s mail came in. After reading Joe’s post, I’ve added a poll asking “Whether you believe that healthcare reform needs to be driven by patients, rather than medics or legislators?” Please go and vote – I’ll post the result in a later blog.
So why do I think we need a manifesto..?
FDA – mHealth’s Angel or Demon?
In the rush to get a chunk of Obama’s healthcare billions, any industry with the slightest idea about remote healthcare is doing their best to claim that they are the rightful recipient of the cash. The latest of these is the CTIA, who recently held a policy forum featuring medical experts and government officials. In it they touted the promise of mobile health applications that would drive down costs and improve the quality of care. They admitted that they didn’t have a policy yet, but they certainly want a chunk of the action for their members when the $19 billion dollar treasure chest is opened. They’re not alone, but amongst all of the feverish lobbying going on in Washington there seems to be a total neglect of the role of the FDA. Instead there’s a general opinion that a good PowerPoint and drinks for enough politicians will overrule any regulatory requirements.
mHealth has been (and still is) a long time in coming. There’s a whole host of reasons for that. It’s trying to grow up in a room full of 800 pound gorillas, amongst them technology, resistance from the medical profession and a lack of standards. But hiding behind the visible 800 pounders is the big brother of invisible gorillas – the Food and Drugs Administration, fondly know as the FDA.
The FDA is responsible for regulating medical devices and services in the U.S. If they say a product or service can’t be offered, then it’s effectively dead. It provides a barrier to entry for manufacturers and services in the medical and health arena. So far, it’s had little to say about many of the visions of the mHealth industry, but there is no doubt that it will. I recently saw a presentation that outlines just how wide its powers and scope are. And they are wide. If the FDA enforced the most aggressive interpretation of its rules it could probably stop sales of the iPhone today.
I’m sure it won’t. This isn’t a rant against the FDA, but about the relative naivety of many of the organisations claiming to offer solutions in their quest for a part of the new healthcare pot. The future of mHealth would be far better served if organisations like the CTIA concentrated less on the high level fanfares and started engaging in informed debate about how the regulatory regime needs to change.