M2M : Machine 2 Machine

The proposed plan to provide universal healtcare includes a Proposal to make M2M an integral part of patient care. This coudl mean that in the near a healt monitoring device could be as common as a television in each house. The proposal involes using remote monitoring to provide preventative care – the group recognizes the cost savings offered by M2M solutions.

Medical Device Trade Group Releases Universal Health Care Plan

The trade group proposed promoting preventive services such as remote-monitoring technology, hardware in some medical devices that allows physicians to monitor information about patients with heart conditions and diabetes. The proposal would encourage reimbursement for physicians who review information collected by the devices. In addition, AdvaMed proposed creating a fast-track process for medical device and drug companies to more quickly receive Medicare reimbursement for products. AdvaMed officials said that the proposal would cost $167 billion annually (Snowbeck, St. Paul Pioneer Press, 6/21).

A conference that brings together System Networking and healhtcare professionals to talk about use of network technology to improve the lives of an aging population. This is interesting as it address some my themes from previous posts about managing and providing cost effective care for the elderly.

As the world’s population grows older, healthcare and high-tech companies are joining forces. New technologies are being used to provide improved support for elderly and home bound people in their homes and in assisted living environments. The overall goal of these initiatives is to improve the quality of life by providing customized support to people in need of assistance. The main challenge is to provide this support according to the user’s own specific situation in a non-intrusive and respectful way. These new technologies enable the automatation of the observation and support for elderly and home bound people through the use of sensors, actuators, distributed intelligence, databases, ubiquitous connectivity and friendly adaptive interfaces, all connected mainly via a variety of wireless networking technologies. The ultimate goal is a system that can adapt to the users needs, helping them get through their daily routine in a way that is effective in providing support where needed without making them feel humiliated by excessive attention. To provide such support, it will be necessary to combine efforts from many areas of computer science, including networking, distributed systems, security, data management, HCI and middleware.

Given the inherent use of mobile and wireless communication and the need for comprehensive distributed systems as well as the multi-disciplinary nature of solutions for healthcare and assisted living environments, the goal of HealthNet is to provide a forum for the cross-area interactions that will be necessary for successful systems and applications. The specific focus of HealthNet will be on understanding what it takes to provide effective systems and communication support for healthcare and assisted living environments.

 Report Linker has released a new Wireless M2M forecast for the north american Market. In one of my previous posts I had mentioend that the home security market would be a big driver for the M2M space in the near future. This report seems to reinforce that notion

“There are about 32 million monitored alarm systems in North America and the population of POS-terminals is estimated to 15 million. Both types of devices are today predominantly connected to fixed line networks. In the case of security alarms, cellular networks can serve a vital role as backup communication links. POS-terminals become more versatile with cellular connectivity and in some cases dedicated fixed lines can be replaced by cellular connections also at fixed locations. ”

http://www.reportlinker.com/p046469/wireless-m2m.html