Initiative promotes health device connectivity

Intel forms an alliance of vendors and health care organizations to develop interoperability standards for remote monitoring devices.

By Tyler Chin, AMNews staff. June 19, 2006.

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.