Another massive week in healthcare technology news gave us plenty of information in this hot-button sector, and that means we've got a lot of ground to cover in this week's Week in Review coverage. So settle in and let's run down all the high points of the week that was in health care technology!
First, there was some exciting news about a major new growth sector in healthcare, thanks in part to some support from the FCC. The sector in question is known as mHealth, or mobile healthcare, and promotes the use of data transmission of all sorts – text, video and audio alike – to improve healthcare service and access.
Supported and regularly used by physicians, this market has the potential to affect healthcare's bottom line directly in several ways.
Next came a report involving BillingTree, who sought a way to better process payments related to healthcare. To that end, the firm expressed interest in some new partnerships geared toward providing improvements in service. Several questions were asked relating to this concept that BillingTree was out to answer with new products and services, such as how healthcare providers will adapt to patients paying their own bills when insurance companies aren't involved and there are bills outstanding.
Then we looked into the issue of smart pills. Not pills that make those who take them smarter, but rather pills that are themselves smart. This is possible thanks to a newly-developed technology called ICT, or Ingestible Capsule Technology. With ICT, pills can include not only their particular array of chemicals, but also a very small electronics array that can perform diagnostic functions while in the human body, monitor for problems and transmit information back to physicians who can perform necessary interdiction or warn about potential biological issues.
Next was a coalition effort among various NFL stars to get kids into the game and help fight childhood obesity with Kinects. Dubbed the 60 Million Minutes Challenge, major names like Jerry Rice and Drew Brees are offering kids some significant bragging rights in exchange for agreeing to undertake a little exercise, for just 60 minutes a day.
The kind doesn't matter so much – playing outside, joining a sports team or even cranking up the Kinect – but 60 minutes a day gets participants a chance at a "social autograph," in which one of several sports stars will send a friend request on Facebook, or just join a Twitter feed, to the winners.
Finally, we looked at a new report that focused on the ability to control applications on mobile devices, not with touchscreens or external inputs, but rather with the power of the mind. Freer Logic's new BodyWave technology allows users to use their brainwaves to generate the necessary feedback to control certain functions.
One particular function, Play Attention, allows users to play a game with sheer mental focus that's actually showing some promise in terms of treating attention deficit disorder.
Those are just the high points in a week that was very, very full of news as far as the healthcare technology segment went. This left our global online community scrambling to get it all to you, and as a result, left plenty to read in its wake.
Be sure to join us back here next week for more news in this rapidly-developing sector, and of course every weekend for our Week in Review coverage!
