Using technology to manage personal health care is not new, as most of us have pedometers, weighing scales etc., to regularly or occasionally check our progress.
For people with certain type of diseases there are variety of devices in the market to monitor glucose to blood pressure and what have you, to monitor the progress or digress from the recommended care plan.
What’s missing though, is that these devices are not connected to anyone – for example a care provider, a family member, care team – who are interested in the patient’s well being and care progress.
That’s where Continue Health Alliance , an alliance of more than 200 companies, comes in – as stated in their mission – to enable an eco-system of interoperable personal health systems for that empower people & organizations to better manage their health and wellness.
Here is a video from Continua that shows the outcomes of a connected personal health care.
If it sounds like the StarTrek of personal healthcare, here is where Continua sees the opportunity in the cream of the pyramid (western world)
- 1 billion adults overweight
- 860 million chronic disease patients
- 600 million elders age 60 or older
- 75-85% of healthcare spending is on chronic disease management
And there are already few devices that are Continua certified which can connect to personal health record softwares like Microsoft’s HealthVault or ICW’s Life Sensor
More to come on the technology behind Continua certified products…
Saravana Rajan 