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Wireless health tech targets baby boomers

Technology moves from treatment to diagnostics

By Steve Ranger

Published: Friday 21 July 2006

A new generation of wireless health systems will monitor healthy people and warn them if they are at risk of becoming sick.

At the moment hospitals are using wireless systems to cut costs by treating patients remotely - for example, treating them in their own homes rather than in the hospital.

But according to a report published by analyst house Wireless Healthcare, this means that existing services only address the needs of patients who are already receiving treatment - focusing on remote care rather than remote diagnostics.

What is missing, the analyst claims, is the intelligence to allow these systems to spot trends automatically, indicating a person may experience health problems in the future.

The analyst argues that with new technologies on the horizon a new 'e-health model' is emerging, where people are intercepted before they enter the healthcare system.

Wireless Healthcare senior analyst Peter Kruger said advances in personalised healthcare - and the growing interest that the baby boomer generation is showing in wireless monitoring devices - will provide opportunities for companies that want to offer services to the "worried well" as well as people considered to be "at risk".

For pictures of some of these remote monitoring technologies click here.

Kruger said in a statement: "These two groups of healthcare consumers tend to be ignored by incumbent healthcare providers."

A number of technologies are being developed that add this intelligence and, since manufacturers are pushing wireless medical devices into the consumer electronics market at the same time, this could lead to a situation where people can be treated before their conditions worsen.

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posted by Cheryl Levesque @ 5:05 PM