Patients and health insurers are embracing technology designed for home monitoring of chronic diseases as a way to reduce costs for the treatment of common conditions, CNN/Business 2.0 Magazine reports. The market for home medical monitoring for chronic conditions could reach $500 million annually by 2009, according to analysts. Two home monitoring devices are highlighted below.
Health Buddy: Health Hero Network's Health Buddy transmits patients' vital signs, glucose levels and blood pressure daily to their health care providers, and it will tell patients to call their providers if their levels are not normal, CNN/Business 2.0 Magazine reports.
About 10,000 Department of Veterans Affairs patients use the Health Buddy device. The tool costs $99, and iCare Health Monitoring's service, which monitors patients' vitals signs and alerts physicians and relatives when there is a problem, costs $50 per month. Patients' relatives can also log onto iCare's Web site to check patient information, CNN/Business 2.0 Magazine reports.
Carematix wireless transmitters: VA patients also are using Carematix wireless transmitters, which are built into glucose meters and other scales so that data can be sent to a wireless router and transmitted to care providers.
Other VA home care patients are using ViTel Net's video teleconferencing tool to "check in" from home (Datta, CNN/Business 2.0 Magazine, 10/11).