Initiative promotes health device connectivity

Several sellers of remote monitoring and consumer electronic devices announced June 6 that they have formed an alliance to promote and develop standards enabling their devices to "talk" with each other as well as with electronic medical records systems.

The nonprofit group, called Continua Health Alliance, will develop standards for medical devices consumers use in their homes or on the go. Those include remote monitoring devices used by people with chronic conditions and monitoring devices for the elderly, said David Whitlinger, director of health care device standards at Digital Health, a unit of Intel Corp.

Intel earlier this year announced plans to develop specialized computers for clinicians and patients with chronic conditions.

The alliance also will develop standards for devices consumers use to monitor fitness, diet or both, said Whitlinger, president and chair of the board of directors of Continua.

Intel formed the alliance, which is open to any company that pays an undisclosed annual membership fee, because "from a home perspective, there's a very strong demand for this convergence between the health care industry and consumer electronics," Whitlinger said.

Alliance members view the home environment as part of the continuum of care, and integrating remote monitoring devices with their electronics, computers and home networks will make it easier for consumers to use home monitoring devices and share data with clinicians, he added.

The alliance will write and use guidelines supporting common industry connectivity standards such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, enabling the devices to exchange data with each other, Whitlinger said. They also will work with health care standards organizations such as Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Health Level Seven and ASTM International, West Conshohocken, Pa.

Continua will set up a product certification process that will allow companies to affix a logo to their products indicating to the health care industry which products will work together.

Companies that are members of Continua will have a jump-start on nonmembers in terms of producing and certifying their products, Whitlinger said, adding that initial products which meet Continua's standards will start shipping in early 2008.

Some industry observers believe that Intel's initiative could be a catalyst for the remote monitoring industry. The health care industry is very interested in remote monitoring but has been slow to adopt it because the devices are relatively unknown, pricey, and not covered by payers, said Gregg Malkary, managing director of Spyglass Consulting, a market research company in Palo Alto, Calif.

"Today, remote monitoring solutions cost $3,000 to $5,000 apiece, and the price really needs to be in the sub-$500 range," Malkary said.

In addition to Intel, Continua's founding members include Kaiser Permanente, Partners HealthCare, Medtronic Inc., Welch Allyn Inc., Motorola Inc., Philips Electronics, Cisco Systems Inc., Samsung, Panasonic and Sharp.