Wireless technologies and Internet connectivity together dramatically reduce the cost of this patient monitoring, enabling it to be much more frequent (or even continuous). This in turn allows tailored care and much faster intervention when necessary, leading to ultimate benefits for the well-being of the patient.
In many cases connected personal health devices also enable self-care in the patient’s home, bringing further convenience and quality of life benefits, and simultaneously reducing costs for the healthcare provider and the state. Chronic care management is an area where these benefits are particularly evident, however wireless connectivity is also improving products and equipment used in acute care scenarios throughout all areas of healthcare services delivery.
At the same time, connected personal fitness devices are encouraging and supporting overall health improvements in the general population. Trends towards the “quantified self” empower individuals with the information they need to make well-informed decisions with regard to exercise, diet, and sleep. Wireless technologies are central to these use cases as they enable seamless transfer of information from sensors and measurement devices to the rich user interface of a smartphone, or even to the Internet.
Low power wireless technologies such as Bluetooth® low energy and ANT+ are key enablers for a range of these mobile health and fitness applications. These technologies enable reliable and efficient communication between health and fitness devices, and smartphones, tablets, or gateway devices, with such low cost and complexity that they are becoming an absolute requirement for modern products in these markets. In particular, the tiny size and low power consumption of transceivers for these technologies enable their use in a wide range of exciting wearable sensors which have strict form-factor requirements and extremely constrained energy sources.