Managing Care Through Air
From: IEEE Spectrum - 12/2004 - Vol. 41, No. 12, P. 26
By: Philip E. Ross

The swelling elderly population threatens to make medical care costs
prohibitive, unless a way is found to keep labor expenses to a minimum.
Remote monitoring technologies such as wireless sensor networks could do this
while allowing the aged to live more independently rather than face
institutionalization. Intel, Hewlett-Packard, and other companies have
partnered with the Center for Aging Services Technologies (CAST) to enable
wireless remote monitoring. CAST Chairman Eric Dishman believes the core
technology of this effort will be unobtrusive, battery-powered,
self-organizing "mote" sensor networks that share data about the patient's
physical and behavioral health with each other and with computers that
physicians, support groups, and others can access to help manage the
patient's care. Behavioral monitoring via wireless networks could help spot
the onset of neurological diseases much earlier, as well as help patients
take their prescribed medication properly. Sensors and monitors worn on or
implanted within the body can also enhance elderly care: One example is
CardioNet's mobile cardiac outpatient telemetry system, in which a wearable
electrocardiogram wirelessly transmits heart data to a personal data
assistant equipped with software that automatically alerts a constantly
manned monitoring center when a potentially serious aberration is recorded.
Biotronik, meanwhile, makes implanted cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) with
software that delivers an electric jolt to the heart when problems are
detected; the ICDs are also programmed to automatically transmit cardiac
information to a special cell phone, which emails the data to a monitoring
center. Before remote health care monitoring can be deployed, its
practicality must be proven to the health care community and its
cost-effectiveness must be confirmed for insurers and governments. 

Read the entire article at:
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/publicfeature/dec04/1204net.html

Links:
Center for Aging Services Technologies
http://www.agingtech.org/index.aspx

CarioNet
http://www.cardionet.com/device.html

Biotronik
http://www.biotronik.com/content/list.php?page=en_homepage&_flash_plugin=1