Wireless medicine has a sugar daddy is zdnet guru Dana Blankenhorn’s take on the donation of yet more millions of dollars from the philanthropically-minded Gary and Mary West to the Gary and Mary West Wireless Health Institute in San Diego. With GE Healthcare being one of the beneficiaries – as if it didn’t have money enough – it is an interesting development.
[Editor’s (Donna) note 18 May: According to the release, the WWHI partnership with GE Healthcare is for research and expertise; it specifically does not ‘include any exchange of funds’. This is the second research partnership announced by GE Healthcare in the past few weeks (TRIL Centre, TA 27 April), with a late 2008 initiative continuing in Hungary, yet their telehealth/wireless product portfolio is limited to QuietCare, the Vscan handheld scanner and a partnership with Intel Home Health. One awaits the major moves.]
A universal ’embedded’ mobile app (everything emergency) for maximum distribution
To optimize mHealth or wireless Health, which ever label you choose to use, a way to get universal coverage in the area of distribution would be to tap into a ‘universal need’, like emergency. You see, it’s been brought to my attention that mHealth (or wireless Health, as the case might be) only works if one is alive and connected. Take the connectivity away and there goes the critical content. However, embed the critical content into the memory of the phone, where it resides until the user needs it, like your contact list or photo files, and with or without connectivity this selected and elected content, all residing in the public domain, is immediately available when the user needs it the most, even if the network is ‘down for the count’. Apply global coverage and you have coverage worldwide like you’ve never dreamed of, all via LSA . . . reaching 97% plus of all cell phone subscribers, closing in on 5 billion. Patent information from Google.