A newcomer to Telecare Aware’s gallery of telehealth is Boston Life Labs. This startup’s ‘plug-and-play’ system has made the rounds of ATA and mHealth Summit. Their ‘telehealth in a box’ (see below) consists of eight devices (monitoring 12 vital signs) connecting via Bluetooth to a wireless hub (AT&T, T-Mobile) and therein to a server that generates graphical reports accessible on the web, Android and BlackBerry (what, no iPhone?) So far, not very different than MedApps, Ideal Life, Bosch Health Buddy and others save the device integration and their claim that it’s easier to set up than other systems. Now the difference: a disease management platform called HealthTunes 360 that debuted at CES. Despite the name, it has nothing to do with music and everything to do with enabling real-time interactive questioning of a patient by a clinician on a color touchscreen called the HealthPad. Simple questions are answered by the patients by touching the appropriate answer. Now this is different…but has gained little notice save this one article in EE Times which focuses on the telehealth devices and not the HealthPad. And the BLL press release is not exactly meaty. Let’s hope they clean up their communications act by the time they get FDA approval.
