Sunday, January 20, 2013

Android Tablets, Phones and Bluetooth HDP

By Peter Allon


Assume you are a physician and have a patient with a heart condition. The patient is currently at a friend's residence and is experiencing issues. Your Android smartphone alerts you of the potential trouble. You open up the alert and are able to see in real-time your patient's heart rate, blood pressure, blood oxygen levels as well as other vital statistics which may help you determine next steps. You decide that your patient is in distress and call for an ambulance with the touch of a button and call up your patient. Your patient's location can also be known due to the GPS within their smartphone.

This example is rapidly becoming a reality with a recent development in technology: Bluetooth Health Data Profile (HDP). Bluetooth HDP is really a new layer overlaid on the Bluetooth protocol stack that describes a standard set of instructions for medical-related devices. The Bluetooth HDP piece of equipment would safely connect and transmit data to a smartphone or other receivers. The data could then be transmitted to a primary health management software application utilised by the physicians, nurses, homecare providers, etc.

The truth is there are large numbers of medical products which are currently Bluetooth enabled. Yet, until recently there's not been a standard set of instructions to exchange data. This is the reason why each device will need to have its own proprietary application to communicate with. Bluetooth HDP devices will be able to interact with applications developed to support the new standard. One huge advantage to consumers is the ability to buy a heart monitor from one vendor and a blood oxygen meter from another. Each of these devices can now communicate with your health care providers chosen health management system. This is excellent for the consumer simply because it gives us choice and does not lock us into a single vendor's system. We can also pick the best of breed hardware and software as well as purchase at competitive prices.

Why do we need a standard set of instructions? Here is an example. What if the web failed to use a standard set of protocols and technology to show webpages? This would mean that you will need a specific browser to view each website. One web browser, like Firefox, may or may not function with that one website. Because of standards we're able to use 1 browser to surf the web.

Medical device suppliers and health management software designers will be the largest users of this technology. Due to the fact we have a growing aging population, healthcare providers need to work out better methods to provide high-quality care to their clients and scale with the increasing number of cases. However, there are many others that can also reap the benefits of this technology. For instance, aerobic exercise equipment producers could possibly use Bluetooth HDP to collect data from a heart monitor worn by the individual and send it to the home treadmill they are running on. The speed of the cardio equipment could be increased or decreased based upon on data received from the heart monitor and according to the training type. The heart monitor could also be used on any cardio equipment at any other gym as long as it is a Bluetooth HDP enabled piece of equipment.




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