April/May 2008

There's a growing market for wireless and mobile phone-based healthcare platforms, according to a report by Cambridge-based research company Wireless Healthcare.

It says mobile communications platforms 'provide a relatively simple means of connecting diagnostic medical devices to the electronic medical records systems and advanced Health 2.0 based services'. It points out that such services are now under development by companies such as Google and Revolution Health.

The report, Wireless eHealth Platforms, identifies two main types of platforms - those such as BlueAid that are being built from the ground up as healthcare communications platforms; and others such as IBM's WebSphere, which are conventional e-commerce platforms that can be customised to support 'e-health' applications.

Many mobile technologies seem likely to converge in this market. The report sees increasing use of a range of wireless standards including Bluetooth, Wi-Fi (802.11) and ZigBee for communications between mobile phones and what it terms 'wireless healthcare hubs'.

It says healthcare providers have yet to realise the kind of savings already achieved by commercial organisations such as airlines and banks.