After reporting last week that it had received a $380,000 order for its WL54-CF CompactFlash cards, AmbiCom has announced that the same company has ordered an additional $1.2 million worth of products this week.
The AmbiCom CompactFlash cards gives PDA devices like glucose meters instant wireless connectivity. The card simply plugs into a port just like a memory card, instantly connecting the PDA to available Wi-Fi.
IMS Research, using data released last year, has predicted that individual adoption of mobile medical devices, not telehealth, will increase demand for wireless medical devices. In fact, IMS predicted that devices purchased to self-monitor health will account for 80 percent of all wireless medical device purchases by 2016.
“Complete systems…also allow consumers to take blood glucose readings and upload them to a dedicated cloud-based system via a mobile phone using Bluetooth wireless technology,” IMS wrote in a statement accompanying the data. “This information can then either be viewed directly on a mobile device such as a smartphone, or via an Internet portal on a computer.”
In addition to smartphone apps that can track health data, IMS sees a market for peripheral devices such as blood pressure monitors that can attach to smartphones and provide regular blood pressure updates.
By adding the AmbiCom CompactFlash card to an existing glucose meter, the company that made the large order from AmbiCom can make its devices wireless without having to go back and create a completely new design.
Wireless blood glucose meters can then send patient blood sugar measurements to an online database, where patterns can be monitored by the patient, caregivers and medical personnel.
Patient engagement is crucial to improving healthcare, according to the National eHealth Collaborative, which has created a five-step model for patient engagement. The project’s national coordinator for IT, Dr. Fastad Mostashari, has called patient engagement “the blockbuster drug of the century.”
Edited by
Brooke Neuman
