You are on page 1of 37

WIRELESS HEALTH: STATE OF THE INDUSTRY 2009 Year End Report

December 16, 2009

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Publishers Note and Editors Letter Industry Metrics: Wireless Health by the Numbers Carriers Take the Lead on Wireless Health Care Providers Push Pilots, Look for Results Alliances and Institutes Accelerate Time to Market Reimbursement Rises and Falls Consumer Health: The Answer to Who Pays? 2009 Wireless Health Venture Capital 2009 Wireless Health Deals A Step-By-Step How-to for Wireless Health Regulation The Year in Conclusion

1 2 7 11 14 18 20 23 25 32 35

Publishers Note
Dear reader, As 2009, the rst year of publishing for MobiHealthNews draws to a close, our team has been busy revisiting the top stories, deals, interviews and event coverage from the past 12 months. After writing more than 700 posts on the MobiHealthNews site, publishing 45 newsletters, attending and covering countless industry events and reading well over 2000 comments from our readers, we would like to present the MobiHealthNews' Wireless Health State of the Industry Year End Report. We would like to thank our site's premier sponsors: MedApps, West Wireless Health Institute and AllOne Health for supporting our eorts. We would also like to thank our publication's many outside contributors whose perspective has added experience and depth to our industry coverage. While this report pulls from some of their work, I would like to point out that any errors, misconceptions or wayward commentary rest squarely on the shoulders of our editor, Brian Dolan. Thank you for being an active member of the MobiHealthNews community. We look forward to serving you in the New Year. Sincerely, Joe Maillie Publisher, Co-Founder MobiHealthNews

Letter from the Editor


Dear Reader, As the break out year for wireless health comes to a close, so too does MobiHealthNews' rst year of publishing. Please accept this report as our holiday gift to you. Feel free to re-gift it to colleagues, friends and family. For those scrappy wireless health startups reading, this may be an opportunity to approach that wealthy uncle or aunt you had hoped would come on as an Angel investorN.B. this report contains nearly all of the wireless health market metrics publicly released this past year as well as a round-up of other startups that received funding in '09. The quarter-by-quarter deals charts also read like an industry timeline that chronicles much of the higher-level activity that took place throughout 2009. We hope that the recaps and summaries contained herein provide a snapshot of much of the activities that accelerated the wireless health industry these past 12 months. By the looks of it, 2010 should see even more action for wireless health. We look forward to serving you in the New Year. Many thanks, Brian Dolan Editor & Co-Founder MobiHealthNews

State of the Industry

Page 1

Industry Metrics: Wireless Health By the Numbers


Numbers can be helpful. While industry metrics alone cannot propel an emerging market forward, they can serve as inspiration to make a change. Many of the numbers pegged in this section point to opportunity. Here is the summation and aggregation of a year's worth of industry metrics that have shaped and prodded wireless health strategy in 2009. Sizing up wireless health's market opportunity The current wireless home health market is $304 million, according to CTIA, the Wireless Association. Citing Parks Associates research, CTIA stated that the market is expected to grow to $4.4 billion in 2013, with estimated annual growth rates of 96 percent in 2010, 126 percent in 2011, 95 percent in 2012, and 68 percent in 2013. ABI Research estimates that the market for wearable wireless sensors is set to grow to more than 400 million devices by 2014. Of course health and tness sensors aren't the only use case for wearable sensors but they will likely dominate that market. ON World's research views the wireless sensor market through a dierent lens: While it does not estimate the market for wearable wireless sensors, it believes wireless sensors in general will reach a global market value of $6 billion by 2012. That estimate would include wireless sensors installed at home or in managed care facilities: Certainly a key technology group for home health. ABI Research also estimates that revenue from worldwide sales of WiFi-enabled healthcare products, a specic sub category of wireless health that probably includes medical devices inside care facilities, will reach nearly $5 billion in 2014. Forgetting the specic technologies for a minute: What about a market size for home health monitoring of chronic diseases overall? Berg Insight pegs that gure at $11 billion last year for the US and Europe. That market is growing at 10 percent per year, the rm claims, and some 300 million people in Europe and the US have at least one chronic disease that may benet from home health monitoring. Berg believes that about 25 percent of that population would benet from existing home monitoring solutions currently available, while some 50 percent would benet from integrating or connecting existing medical devices with their mobile phones. No matter how you slice it, the market for wireless health is ripe and growing. Consumer demand Some 78 percent of the US is interested in mobile health solutions, according to a survey conducted by CTIA and Harris Interactive. About 15 percent of the US is extremely or very interested in learning more about mobile health solutions, according to the survey. Interestingly, 19 percent of respondents said they would upgrade their current mobile phone plan to get access to wireless health services, while about 11 percent said they would even switch carriers to get access. Why were they so eager? About 40 percent said mobile health would supplement the medical care they receive from their doctor; 23 percent believe mobile health services could
State of the Industry Page 2

Industry Metrics: Wireless Health By the Numbers


replace doctor visits altogether. More than half of respondents said mobile health would benet rural populations the most; just under half of respondents believed people with chronic conditions would benet the most; 41 percent said that retired and or Medicare patients would benet the most from mobile health. Finally, 38 percent said caregivers would gain the most from mobile health services. PricewaterhouseCoopers conducted a similar survey that found 73 percent of consumers would use biometric electronic remote monitoring services to track their chronic condition or vital signs. The gure closely mirrors the near three-quarters of the US population interested in mobile health. Saying and doing are two separate things: According to a survey conducted by the National Council on Aging: One in four people with chronic conditions are delaying care. The percentage is much higher for Baby Boomer women (39 percent) and Latinos (43 percent.) Perhaps easier-touse and more productive tools like some mobile health solutions could help encourage those with chronic conditions to take control of their own health sooner. Expected consumer demand is driving wireless health uptake in managed care facilities: A survey conducted by the Mathers LifeWays Institute on Aging found that senior living community administrators expect that smart home and wireless health oerings will attract residents to their communities. As a result smart home technologies are expected to increase their penetration from 8 percent of senior communities today to 39 percent come 2013. Overburdened healthcare system While the aggregate inux of connected health devices and monitoring services could potentially inject a re hose of new data into an already overtaxed healthcare system, many wireless health tools can help care providers do their job more eciently and stretch their reach more comfortably beyond their current workload. The numbers indicate that care providers as a group are shrinking while the number of sick and elderly Americans is increasing. Wireless health can play a role to mitigate these alarming trends. At the beginning of 2009 during the height of the economic downturn, 71 percent of hospitals said that budget allocations for IT were expected to be smaller in 2009 than in 2008, according to a study commissioned by NCR. Because of the economic downturn some 36 percent of hospitals said they were being more cautious about IT spending, while 19 percent said they had already delayed spending on certain IT purchases. A full 16 percent delayed all non-essential IT project funding as of February. As IT budgets shrank, the specter of a physician and nurse shortage loomed: The number of US medical school students who choose primary care has dropped almost 52 percent since 1997, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP). The group predicts a shortage of 40,000 family physicians by 2020. The US currently has about 100,000 family physicians, but it
State of the Industry Page 3

Industry Metrics: Wireless Health By the Numbers


will need about 140,000 in ten years. Only half the number of physicians needed are entering the eld today. The shortage of nurses is already taking a toll on those in wards today: Nurses report the shortage impacts their day-to-day job, according to a study conducted by Epocrates. About 46 percent of nurses say the shortage decreases the amount of time they can spend with their patients. About 42 percent say it increases their responsibilities and about 37 percent say it increases their patient load. To compound the problem, Americans as a group are getting older. Today, about 12 percent of the US is 65 years old or older, but by 2030 about 20 percent of the US population will be 65 or older. In 2005 the 78 million Americans 65 years old or older accounted for $2 trillion in total health expenditures. The 78 million Baby Boomers, who were born between 1946 and 1964, will begin turning 65 in 2011. The other group that could add to the strain on the system is the 47 million uninsured Americans. Aging aside, the US population as a whole is not t. The CDC said that the average American is about 23 pounds overweight and consumers eat about 250 more calories a day than the average American did two or three decades ago. According to the West Wireless Health Institute 5 million Americans are aected by Alzheimers; 20 million are aected by asthma; 3 million are aected by breast cancer; 10 million are aected by COPD; 19 million are aected by depression; 21 million are aected by diabetes; 5 million are aected by heart failure; 74 million are aected by hypertension; 80 million are aected by obesity; 15 million are aected by sleep disorders. Our overburdened healthcare system cannot help them all through the old methods, but wireless remote monitoring tools could help prevent and/or manage these conditions and others. There are many factors that lead to disease, but up to 40 percent of all chronic conditions are attributable to our behavior. Wireless health solutions can monitor, analyze, encourage and ultimately change behavior. The tools are at hand For many access to wireless health solutions is a given: Close to 90 percent of the US population, about 276 million Americans, already has a mobile phone. During the rst half of the year more than 740 billion text messages were transmitted in the US. Text messaging is one of the simplest channels to deliver public health messages like the White House plans to do with its Text4Baby program for low income, expectant mothers. The Center for Connected Health estimates that there is about 20 or 30 percent of the population where text message reminders will be very powerful.
State of the Industry Page 4

Industry Metrics: Wireless Health By the Numbers


Beyond text messaging, close to 19 percent of Americans now have smartphones. By one estimate there are about 5,000 health and medical applications currently available in the market for smartphone users. Smartphone users may include a number of Medicaid patients: According to one unocial study referenced at a wireless health industry event this year, ve out of seven Medicaid patients in New York and New Jersey use smartphones. Of course, healthcare providers are also adopting mobile phones: Manhattan Research found that 64 percent of physicians use a smartphone today. That's 20 percent more physicians than in 2008. By 2013, 81 percent of physicians will use smartphones, the rm predicts. Healthcare providers have found that not all their patients are mobile phone or technologically savvy, however: About 33 percent of the people the Center for Connected Health works with in their wireless health pilots need a phone call to have someone walk them through how to use wireless devices. The tools are largely available and in the market. The key is to let the public know that these services are available, and then, of course, be sure to support the oerings with adequate customer service. Estimates for cost savings Verizon Wireless recently estimated that mobile broadband solutions improved U.S. health care productivity at a savings of almost $6.9 billion. That gure is expected to increase to $27.2 billion by 2016. And it's not just the carriers predicting big numbers: According to one survey conducted by Cambridge Consultants, 75 percent of healthcare providers, patients, payers and technology enablers believe that connected health preventative services could cut healthcare expenses by 40 percent. The Center for Connected Health sees two key drivers for connected health: Employers want to keep their health insurance costs low by keeping employees healthy; Insurers want to keep their costs low by ensuring care providers manage costs. As employers explore ways to help keep their employees in shape and manage their chronic conditions, wireless health service providers need to be there with solutions that have demonstrated ecacy. Insurers are beginning to increase capitation in order to put pressure on care providers to keep costs low. The Center for Connected Health noted that its parents company, Partners Healthcare has Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts breathing down its neck to make sure they are managing costs. Capitation is where the insurance provider pays care providers a at rate for a year to care for patients and the care provider then has to do its best to control costs within that
State of the Industry Page 5

Industry Metrics: Wireless Health By the Numbers


context. Partners expects that in the next three years close to 50 percent of its revenue will be capitated. That's motivation to keep patients healthy and prevent readmissions by equipping patients with the tools that help them to better manage their own health. At least 125 million Americans are living with one or more chronic diseases. An individual living with one chronic disease costs the US healthcare system $6,032 a year on average, according to Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. The total costs of chronic diseases in the US healthcare system today top $1.4 trillion. If a wireless health solution can help take a bite out of these gures, there is a business case for it.

State of the Industry

Page 6

Carriers Take the Lead on Wireless Health


We took a run at this ve years ago and it zzled out pretty quickly, explained Rob Mesirow, Vice President of CTIA, the international association for the wireless industry. Quite frankly, it just wasnt the time, the stars werent aligned, wireless data networks werent robust enough and medical data wasnt there. Now, the next generation of doctors, who are more comfortable with health IT technology, along with stronger mandates from the federal level and robust carrier networks are coming together, Mesirow told MobiHealthNews during an interview this past spring. Everyone agrees that the healthcare industry is inecient and thats putting it lightly.... When I specically asked the carriers which verticals should we be focusing on, carriers have unanimously said that healthcare is one we should go for. Carrier involvement starts with M2M One way that U.S. carriers will enable the wireless health market is via machine-to-machine business units and joint ventures, which aim to support connectivity for devices other than traditional mobile phones. Earlier this year Verizon Wireless announced a machine-to-machine (M2M) joint venture with Qualcomm, called nPhase, which among other deviceswill support wireless remote monitoring company, CardioNet's connectivity. Similarly, AT&T opened a device certication lab that aims to accelerate the entry of netbooks, eReaders, portable navigation devices, utility products, and healthcare-related tracking devices into the market. Shortly after the nPhase and AT&T lab announcements, Sprint inked a multi-year agreement with M2M company DataSmart to help embedded device makers bring their products to market sooner. Sprint cited the demand for sophisticated M2M applications, including "the rapid growth in M2M healthcare." Amazon's eBook reader, the Kindle has long been referenced as a model that the wireless health industry should emulate in terms of working with wireless carriers: Maybe its a little overused at this point, but the Kindle represents a dierent model. Its not carrier-based. Its not subscription-based. Its one example of the kind of creative business models that are coming out of the wireless industry, Mesirow said. Because of devices like the Kindle and the opportunity for wireless health devices, Harbor Research predicted this past year that M2M device shipments might top 430 million units by 2013. Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg believes that M2M device uptake is set to explode in the U.S. While we are approaching a 90 percent penetration rate in the U.S. for the number of Americans using mobile phones, the opportunity to reach 500 percent penetration is possible thanks to embedded devices and machine-to-machine (M2M) services. Seidenberg specically pointed to connected medical devices like a wireless-enabled glucose monitor as an example of an embedded device that could push the industry to 500 percent penetration. Does wireless health need a LifeComm anymore? MVNOs seem to pop up for anything these days, Mesirow told MobiHealthNews. So a healthcare MVNO? Sure, why not? But I think all of the carriers are interested in oering wireless health
State of the Industry Page 7

Carriers Take the Lead on Wireless Health


services over their networks. Back in 2005 Qualcomm began to publicly discuss plans to launch LifeComm, a mobile phone service with wireless health applications and devices at its core, but back then specialized mobile phones services, also called mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) were all the rage: ESPN Mobile, Disney Mobile and AMP'd Mobile were among the MVNOs that eventually made it to market. These sports and entertainment focused services quickly lost steam and mostly disbanded within a year. LifeComm never launched ocially, but Qualcomm worked on the initiative for years until deciding in 2009 that the existing wireless carriers, especially Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Jitterbug and Sprint were willing to oer wireless health services themselves. Early in 2009, just before MobiHealthNews broke the news that LifeComm was shutting down, Qualcomm presented some of the devices and services that LifeComm was planning to support: A mobile phone with an embedded glucometer for diabetics and a mobile personal emergency response system (MPERS) medallion for seniors. For the MPERS device think "Lifeline on steroids," a Qualcomm representative said, a medallion small enough for users to wear around their neck, but it still contains the "guts" of a mobile phone and an accelerometer to detect activity. Qualcomm is reviewing its options with LifeComm in light of current capital market conditions that have prevented LifeComm from raising the third-party capital necessary to fully develop its initial launch product, a Qualcomm spokesperson told MobiHealthNews in July. The devices and services that were set to launch through LifeComm ended up forming into their own start-ups and companies, Qualcomm said at an event in early December. In a lot of ways, the shuttering of LifeComm was a good news story for the emerging wireless health industry, Qualcomm's Clint McClellan noted. It meant that wireless carriers were willing to support these devices and services. Not needing LifeComm should be seen as a bright spot. Carriers establish their own health focused business units While most of the major U.S. carriers ramped up their M2M businesses in 2009 business units or joint ventures that clearly have a stake in wireless healtha few carriers around the world actually launched healthcare dedicated business units, too. Both Vodafone Group and Verizon, the two owners of Verizon Wireless (45 percent and 55 percent, respectively), launched healthcare focused business units during the fourth quarter of the year. I personally believe that the mobile phone has a very signicant role to play in the provision of healthcare, Vodafone Group CEO Vittorio Colao told attendees at the Mobile Healthcare Industry Summit in London this December. Colao explained that key use cases for mobile in healthcare include: the simplication of clinical work ows, statistical analysis of record keeping, supporting the chronically ill at home as well as reaching under-resourced and geographically dispersed
State of the Industry Page 8

Carriers Take the Lead on Wireless Health


communities. In the short term, Colao said that many mobile health services can be created without having to develop new technology. More often than not we think about mobile health as very complex systems, which may be right for developed markets, but in general technology is not the problem. For developing markets especially, many pilots have shown the power of mobile healthcare, Colao said, but unfortunately there has been little success in scaling these projects. Vodafone Group recently established a new mobile healthcare unit that aims to work with medical organizations, governments and pharmaceutical companies to fully understand what the needs are. We want to start listening to governments and listening to pharmaceuticals to understand what the needs are. It is clear that there is a pressing need for a reevaluation for how we deliver health services in the coming year, Colao said. It is also clear to us that mobile technology has a role to play in how we provide better service and improve healthcare for those in mature and more importantly in developing markets. Verizon launched its healthcare focused business unit in November: Verizon Connected Health Care. On the wireless front, the group is working with a hospital in New Jersey to build a collaboration service that allows specialists to conduct video consultations via mobile devices: Also coming are even more mobile capabilities, including taking video collaboration down to the mobile device. For instance, Verizon is already working with a hospital in New Jersey, [Verizon's managing principle for healthcare, Nancy] Green said, that is building a collaboration service with mobile endpoints, allowing specialists to do consultations from almost anywhere. Verizon oers video consultations for applications like tele-stroke which allows physicians to review patients cases via live video to determine whether they should wait for a doctor to visit or be rush to emergency care. Green believes these services will become much more eective once remote patient monitoring of vitals and video collaboration applications come into the mix, too. Jitterbug ramps up wireless health services By any measure GreatCall's Jitterbug mobile phone service for seniors has led the pack of carriers oering or developing wireless health services for their users. In the past year Jitterbug has become protable; added Internet capabilities to their phones; switched their network from Sprint to Verizon Wireless; acquired a mobile personal emergency response service start-up called MobiWatch; conducted pilots with various wireless health vendors like Meridian and WellDoc; and launched a Services Store stocked with wireless health services. AT&T develops personal health devices; enables remote medical services While AT&T is the exclusive US carrier for the Apple iPhone, which has spurred much of the
State of the Industry Page 9

Carriers Take the Lead on Wireless Health


direct-to-consumer wireless health market this past year, the carrier itself has also made moves to oer wireless health services directly to its users. For the past year AT&T has worked with Texas Instruments and start-up 24Eight on a smart innersole technology that uses wireless sensors to monitor the user's balance and gait. At the end of the year AT&T unveiled a prototype it called smart slippers, which target the senior care market. One analyst estimated the smart slippers and their service package could run about $100 per month. AT&T also announced it was providing cellular connectivity to Vitality's GlowCaps device, which is a pill box cap that ts most standard pill boxes and glows when the user fails to take their medications. AT&T is also working with Hollywood-based Wound Technology Network to support the physicians' group's remote wound care management service. WTN is now using HTC smartphones running on AT&T's data network to access patient records and view images of wounds. WTN previously inked a deal with Verizon Wireless to support laptop data cards for its physicians. Lab workers at AT&Ts quality testing lab in San Antonio, Texas also recently let it slip that the carrier is testing a number of wireless devices and services, including mobile medical tracking systems. Sprints varied wireless health approach Along with Johnson & Johnson company Lifescan, Sprint funded a mobile phone-based diabetes management system pilot conducted by WellDoc. WellDoc found that the pilot led to a 2 percent A1c drop among many of its pilot users. As noted above, Sprint announced this year that it would work with M2M company DataSmart to help embedded device makers to bring their products to market sooner. Sprint teamed up with GE Healthcare update San Antonio, TX-based Methodist Healthcares six hospitals with a converged wireless network platform. The care provider said that since the system could more easily centrally manage the group's communications, the number of IT employees might decrease, which opens up an opportunity to hire more care workers. Sprint partner mVisum announced this year that it was working with the Veteran Aairs to test a system that aims to get critical medical information to a physician while they are on their way to a patients bedside. Conclusion: Carriers are out in front More so than any other potential wireless health service provider, wireless carriers are currently leading the way for managed wireless health services. Carriers have an engaged user base and the tools are already at their disposal to oer wireless health services to consumers. It looks like in the year ahead that carriers will continue to dominate as the service providers of choice. In a few years carriers will begin to work more closely with care providers not just to oer services to the care facilities themselves but also to oer them to the care providers' patients.
State of the Industry Page 10

Care Providers Push Pilots, Look for Results


Kaiser Permanente leads the pack on wireless health While a number of care providers have researched and developed a number of wireless health services, the clear leader of the pack in 2009 has been Kaiser Permanente. At the very beginning of the year, Kaiser announced that it had just completed a pilot for text message appointment reminders with SMS vendor Mobilestorm. The pilot resulted in 0.73 percent fewer no shows across one of its care facility's population, which prompted the care provider to work toward a national rollout of the service. Kaiser Permanente's Director of Enterprise Engineering Carlos Matos told MobiHealthNews during an interview at the HIMSS conference that text messaging reminders are just the beginning: On the SMS side we have had some good success with [text message] integration where we send notications directly to member [mobile phones] for a variety of reasons, Matos said. Our plan is to stimulate more immediacy for our members and also make these communications more feature rich by integrating Kaiser Permanentes carepoint solutions. We want to be able to provide outreach methods that traditionally took the form of mailings and convert those communications to kp.org or SMS. Matos also noted that text messaging could help with the care providers population care management. For example, a diabetic who has not had an A1c exam in a certain amount of time may be notied based on several dierent elements pulled from his EMR that its time to come in for an appointment. (Similarly, Mount Sinai recently announced a pilot it was conducting with CareSpeak to send adherence reminders via text messages to a teenager who had undergone a liver transplant recently. The pilot demonstrated a decrease in the incident of rejection episodes for the teens.) Kaiser Permanente is also white boarding a number of other innovation projects. One of the next services Matos said to expect coming out of Kaisers innovation team may be support for connected biomedical devices. These would be simple ones like wireless-enabled or USB connected blood pressure monitors that KP can equip its patients with for at-home use. These really improve clinical outcomes, Matos said, and they let providers capture very granular information that they can then use to make decisions based on that data analysis. Another example may be a connected weight scale that helps providers track a congestive heart failure patients weight over time. Kaiser's Medical Director of Health Informatics & Web Services Ted Eytan told MobiHealthNews in an interview this year that the value of mobile "comes back to getting that information in a useful way -- right when you need it. What Kaiser Permanente is very good at is taking really large systems and making them very accessible and exible, which is something a lot of Health 2.0 companies can't do as well. We watch some of the mobile [health] demos going on and try to take what we can learn from them and apply it to our own system, but our goal, of course, is
State of the Industry Page 11

Care Providers Push Pilots, Look for Results


always to improve the interaction between patient and doctor in order to improve medical care." At Kaiser the focus is clearly not on the technology or wireless in particular, but regardless, the group is pushing ahead with more wireless health oerings than most care providers in the US. The US Army and the Department of Veteran Aairs (VA) One of the rst wireless health deals inked in 2009 was between AllOne Health and the Army for a mobile phone based communication system that allowed the Army's care givers and physicians to check-in and remotely monitor wounded warriors who had recently returned from the war with traumatic brain injuries. The Army licensed AllOne Mobile for 10,000 soldiers and is rolling it out on an incremental basis. A key wireless health partner of Sprint and BlackBerry's, mVisum, has also worked with the VA this year on wireless health solutions. mVisum is equipping physicians with a mobile phone application that allows them to access patient health information while they are on their way to the patient's bedside. Intel also announced that a regional division of VA was now a customer: The division of the VA had purchased a number of the company's remote patient monitoring, home health touchscreen devices: Intel Health Guides. Intel also inked deals with Memorial Hospital & Health System and a number of other Indiana-based home health agencies. Apple's iPhone: A game changer for care providers? A number of hospitals began to take a look at how they could better integrate Apple's iPhone into their overall clinical workow once it became clear that a majority of physicians (64 percent) now use smartphones (and a growing number of them favor iPhones.) One of the rst hospitals to announce its infatuation with the iPhone was Pennsylvania-based Doylestown Hospital, which was the rst to be proled on Apple's corporate site for equipping its care workers with iPhones. The hospital connected the iPhones to its Meditech EMR system. Houston-based Memorial Hermann care facilities followed as a second hospital proled on Apple's site. Then, news broke that Apple was working directly with EMR vendor Epic Systems to integrate iPhones into Epic's EMR solution for a hospital at Stanford University. Rumor has it that the iPhone-EMR solution will roll out early next year and big care providers like Kaiser Permanente are already taking a look. One start-up that has begun to capitalize on the iPhone's growing popularity among care providers is Voalte, a Florida-based startup the oers an iPhone-enabled voice, alarm, text service for nurses. The company piloted its application for nurses at Sarasota Memorial Hospital. Care providers begin to court wireless remote monitoring A number of care providers are beginning to develop and launch wireless remote monitoring
State of the Industry Page 12

Care Providers Push Pilots, Look for Results


services for various chronic conditions: Partners Healthcare in Boston even spun out a start-up, named Connected Health, that is initially focused on a service for wireless remote monitoring of blood pressure through a connected cu. The start-up just completed a pilot with Boston-area employer EMC. A number of care providers are also taking a look at wireless sensors: London-based St. Mary's Hospital plans to trial Toumaz Holding's wireless sensor for vital sign monitoring. The bandaidlike sensor monitors skin temperature, heart rate and respiration. Wireless sensor-enabled home-based monitoring startup WellAware inked deals with two senior care facilities: Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society and Hastin. WellAware will equip the outpatient centers with wireless sensors for senior care. WellAware inked the deals this fall only a few weeks after the startup launched. Mayo Clinic and STMicroelectronics are collaborating on a wireless cardiac monitoring service that will monitor heart rate, breathing rate, and physical activity. St. Francis Hospital is testing out St. Jude Medical's wireless-enabled, remote monitoring pace maker, which transmits data to the server at least once a day. Finally, Ohio Health has been testing out iShoe's smart innersole technology for fall prevention. iShoe is expected to launch in 2010 with a $100 pricepoint, according to one estimate. Health insurers oer wireless health services Health insurers have also begun to take an active role in oering wireless health solutions to their members: Signica Insurance Group (Signica) and Erin Group Administrators both inked deals with AllOne Health to allow their members to view, manage and exchange their health information with their physicians. AllOne Mobile works on a wide variety of mobile phones so the oering is easier for an insurance company to provide. When wireless health oerings are tied to a specic device, it makes more sense for the wireless carrier that supports that mobile phone to oer the service. Harvard Pilgrim made headlines this fall when it announced plans to pilot MedMinder's wireless-enabled PillBox for chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients. CKD aects about 26 million people according to the companies and it has no cure. By adhering to the right medication regimen, however, the disease can be managed. Harvard Pilgrim is piloting the system to determine its ecacy. Blue Cross Blue Shield's venture arm has been particularly active in investing in wireless health startups this year: The rm made two big investments, one in Myca and another in Phreesia. Phreesia oers a touchscreen device that enables physicians' oces to more easily check-in patients and determine their insurance coverage immediately. Myca powers a physician collaboration platform that integrates everything from billing to EMRs to other administrative tasks and allows physicians to interact with patients via email or even text message.

State of the Industry

Page 13

Alliances and Institutes Accelerate Time to Market


While wireless carriers and care providers are perhaps two of the most important players in wireless health after the patient, of course, this past year saw a growing role for industry organizations, academic institutions and non-prot institutes. The groups evangelized the industry through events and educational seminars and pushed regulators and lawmakers to ripen the market for innovation. Their guidance has shepherded start-ups closer to launch and accelerated the overall progress of the industry in the past year. Here are the players worth keeping an eye on: West Wireless Health Institute In March the West Wireless Health Institute founded thanks to a $45 million gift from the Gary and Mary West Foundation and support from Qualcomm and Scripps Health. The San Diegobased Institute has since worked to take wireless medicine out of the lab and into the marketplace. Don Jones, Qualcomms Vice President of Health and Life Sciences serves as the Institutes Founding Board Member while Scripps Healths Chief Academic Ocer Eric Topol is the Institutes Chief Medical Ocer. Gary West is the Institute's chairman and Mehran Mehregany recently joined the team as the Institute's executive vice president of engineering and chief of engineering research. The organization is currently recruiting for other leadership positions. At the time of the Institute's founding, Topol noted that part of the Institute's mandate is to help validate the hundreds of wireless health devices that may already have FDA approval but are looking for clinical validation to make it to the market. By mid-year the WWHI announced that the rst start-up it would help bring to market was wireless sensor-enabled remote monitoring start-up Corventis, which specializes in detecting heart uid status for patients with heart disease. The company uses a peel-and-stick, bandaid-like wireless sensor that can interface with a wireless device to track and monitor patients vital signs. The WWHI is currently facilitating clinical trials for the company. The WWHI has also been particularly eective at educating the industry and others about the wireless health opportunity by evangelizing key conditions that wireless health solutions could better manage and assembling data about the opportunities to lower costs in the overburdened US healthcare system through the use of wireless remote monitoring technologies. UCLA Wireless Health Institute The Wireless Health Institute (WHI) was established last year as a community of UCLA experts from engineering, medicine, nursing, pharmacology, public health and other disciplines that aims to improve the timeliness and reach of health care through the development and application of wireless, network-enabled technologies integrated with current and next-generation medical enterprise computing. In 2009 UCLA appointed Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong as executive director of the university's Wireless Health Institute.
State of the Industry Page 14

Alliances and Institutes Accelerate Time to Market


Soon-Shiong told MobiHealthNews in an interview that the Institutes mandate is to not only enable the development of these technologies but also to foster wireless health start-ups and test the wireless health technologies to prove their ecacy: I believe the only way we can truly transform healthcare is if we enable both patients and providers to have access to data that is truly outcomes actionable, Soon-Shiong said. Evidence-based, outcomes-driven data at the point-of-care is the goal. Those few words have a deep meaning to them evidence-based outcomes based point-of-care. That is the holy grail for healthcare transformation. Soon-Shiong noted that medication adherence is a key problem that wireless health can work to solve. He also pointed to a few other wireless health technologies he thinks encapsulates the potential of the technology: wireless biometric devices; sensors that can help detect developing foot ulcers before diabetics realize they are getting them; smart canes that use accelerometers to notify caregivers a patient may soon fall; and a wireless lens-less microscope that can use a phones camera for diagnostics. Continua Health Alliance The Continua Health Alliance, a consortium of more than 220 wireless and medical companies, which aim to create an interoperable ecosystem of medical devices and systems, has been busy this year. After announcing its rst two Continua-certied products, the Alliance also announced two new wireless technologies for its Version 2 guidelines: ZigBee and Bluetooth Low Energy. Since then Continua has announced additional devices have been certied as Continua-approved and interoperable. The Continua Health Alliance has also been recognized as one of the key evangelists for remote patient monitoring on Capitol Hill. Continua's lobbying eorts helped convinced lawmakers to include remote monitoring in the US healthcare bill. Apart from ensuring interoperability among devices and lobbying the legislature, Continua's representatives have been at most of the wireless health focused industry events in the past year. Chuck Parker, Continua's executive director gave a stirring speech at an event in Seattle this past spring. Parker said that remote patient monitoring doesnt need to do any more trials or pilots. He said that the Department of Veterans Aairs (VA) has done remote patient monitoring pilots with about 30,000 patients over the past four years. Thats enough pilots, Parker said, we dont need to do any more pilots for remote patient monitoring; we need to move to deployments, and look to the VA for their pilots ndings. CTIA, The Wireless Association CTIA is an industry association for the wireless industry that hosts a number of events throughout the year and also serves as the wireless industry's liaison with Congress and various regulatory bodies. CTIA quickly became a champion of wireless health in 2009 as it made the emerging industry a focus at its November event in San Diego. Apart from bringing in more than two-dozen
State of the Industry Page 15

Alliances and Institutes Accelerate Time to Market


wireless health start-ups to show o their wares, the association also successfully courted the AARP to participate in the wireless health discussion. During the summer CTIA organized a wireless health event at the U.S. Senate, which brought the chairman of Intel and other wireless industry luminaries to discuss the opportunity that wireless presents to the healthcare industry. CTIA also lobbied the FCC not to enact net neutrality legislation for wireless data networks, because, the CTIA argued, regulating the carriers' ability to manage wireless data trac could stymie innovation particularly in the emerging wireless health industry. Requiring carriers to treat all data trac the same would make it dicult for carriers to ensure critical medical information reaches its destination on time or in tact, the association argued. CTIA also suggested that the FCC make available more wireless spectrum for carriers citing the growing interest in wireless health services. American Telemedicine Association The American Telemedicine Association (ATA) was created in 1993 by a group of doctors who were using video conferencing links between larger health centers and rural clinics. The ATA now describes itself as part trade association and part professional association, because its members include clinicians, physicians, nurses as well as hospitals, institutions, government organizations, corporations, providers. The ATA oers educational work, including its annual conference, advocacy in Washington and elsewhere. The ATA also has special interest groups, about 15 dierent member groups in various areas that provide networking, and it is beginning to create practice guidelines related to healthcare. Why is the ATA interested in wireless healthcare? Pike & Fischer recently predicted that the market for telemedicine devices and services will climb to $3.6 billion in annual revenue over the next ve years largely thanks to a push from wireless technologies, data compression and smartphones. Telemedicine will be dominated by wireless technologies during that time period: More than 70 percent of telemedicine will be wireless healthcare, according to the rm. m-Health Innovation Centre This winter the GSM Association announced a partnership with the University of Manchester in the UK to establish an m-Health Innovation Centre in the city of Manchester. The groups said that the center will have a UK focus to start and aims to promote healthier lifestyles and early intervention through the use of wireless technology, which it believes can improve health outcomes. The Manchester m-Health Innovation Centre plans to conduct multidisciplinary research, bringing together researchers, healthcare organisations and industrial partners to conceive, develop and evaluate mobile health innovations. A major focus will be on citizen-led health and wellbeing, using mobile technology to enable people to play a more active role in determining their own health, providing a more personalized and responsive interface to public services. The new center hopes to provide a forum for sharing ideas, in-depth analysis of the market for wireless
State of the Industry Page 16

Alliances and Institutes Accelerate Time to Market


health, facilitation of pilot trials as well as mHealth education and training. mHealth Alliance Early in 2009, the Vodafone Foundation, UN Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation ocially launched a new joint venture called the mHealth Alliance. By mid-year it appointed wireless industry vet David Aylward to helm the international organization as its executive director. The mHealth Alliance has a decidedly global health focus with a particular interest in bringing the wireless health stakeholders to developing markets. Aylward told MobiHealthNews in an interview that no group has managed to scale mHealth servicesnot in developed or developing markets. There haven't even been large trials yet. Most of what is out there are small, nonsustainable proofs of concept. The mHealth Alliance aims to support and facilitate the integration of services so that rather than having a series of point services these services will become integrated and part of the healthcare system already in existence in that market. Integrating those services is just one mission of the Alliance. Integrating those kinds of services into underlying healthcare systems, e-health to use the short language, is a second. Getting sustainable economics under both of those is a third. Researching and showing the health and economic eect of doing that is a fourth. Underneath those there are more procedural activities, support activities like communications and connecting people together to technology initiatives. The mHealth Alliance recently announced a partnership with the Vodafone Americas Foundation to create an mHealth Alliance Award for the developer of an innovative wireless technology with the most potential to address critical health challenges, especially in developing regions. The prize for the award includes cash and benets totaling $50,000 and guidance from the Alliance about developing the application.

State of the Industry

Page 17

Reimbursement Rises and Falls


You are not going to get paid for cool ideas, IntelliDOT CEO and founder of CardioNet James Sweeney told a group of wireless health entrepreneurs at the Wireless Life Sciences Alliance event this past spring. You are not going to get paid for saving lives. You are not going to get paid for anything unless you can prove that you can save them money.... In the world were moving into, more than ever, if you cant justify the cost benets, then you will fail, Sweeney said. In my view, getting the FDAs approval is not nearly as hard as getting the CPTs and insurance reimbursement approvals. CardioNet, the wireless remote patient monitoring company that Sweeney founded is perhaps the poster child for the rst generation of wireless health companies. The company has the distinction of being the only pure-play wireless health company to have oered an initial public oering and one of the few to acquire reimbursement from the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services (CMS). At the very end of 2008, CardioNet secured a CPT that enabled it to collect $1,123.07 for its Mobile Cardiovascular Telemetry Service. After months of rumors that Highmark CMS planned to reduce its reimbursement rate for CaridoNet and other MCOT services, the payer did. In July CardioNet announced that Highmark Medicare Services planned to slash its reimbursement rate for MCOT services to $754 per service, eective September 1, 2009. Highmark CMS gave no explanation for the cut other than that it believed it was the true value of the service. CardioNet's reimbursement dip sent the company's stock tumbling and forced it to announce plans to cut back on operational costs to sustain its business. Analyst rm Frost & Sullivan sees a bright future for remote patient monitoring, but the key for the industry is reimbursement: The market for remote patient monitoring is set to achieve double digit growth in North America, according to the rm, so long as successful payment strategies are implemented. Last year the remote patient monitoring market made more than $98.2 million, but the market could top $428.6 million by 2015. Frost points to direct reimbursement as one type of payment strategy that needs to mature for the market to grow at this rate: At present, it seems very unlikely that any signicant progress will be made toward direct reimbursement in the next two to ve years, Zachary Bujnoch, industry analyst, Frost & Sullivan stated in the rms release. As a result, market participants are forced to seek alternative payment strategies, and while some of these have proved successful, the huge billion dollar market potential this space possesses is unlikely to be reached without some form of direct reimbursement. Two to ve years before signicant progress is made toward direct reimbursement? If Frost is correct, then more wireless health start-ups will pursue a direct-to-consumer model or an indirect to consumer model through their employers, who are nancially motivated to keep their employees healthy and working.
State of the Industry Page 18

Reimbursement Rises and Falls


Some online health services began to see some progress on the reimbursement front this past year: New York-based MPV Health Care plans to reimburse for more than 22,0000 physicians who use McKesson subsidiary RelayHealths webVisit consultations with their patients. Mobile health companies, however, remain frustrated by CMS. Chronic disease management service provider BeWell Mobile's Vice President and General Manager Greg Seiler believes that CMS should help wireless health companies better understand the reimbursement eligibility process: Itd help to have clear support and guidance coming from Washington for how to enter the CMS system and get reimbursed for technologies that work, Seiler told attendees of the Wireless in Healthcare IT event held at a Senate oce building this past March. What are the metrics for demonstrating the technology works? How can we get them reimbursed? [Answers to these questions could help mHealth move forward] and help to mitigate some of the risks that we would otherwise enjoy taking on. Even devices that are much cheaper than the ones CMS reimburses for currently have trouble getting an audience with the payer. The New York Times published a feature entitled Insurers Shun Multitasking Speech Devices, this past September, that focused on a patient with A.L.S. Since the muscles around her mouth and throat no longer allowed her to speak, she used an $8,000 computer that Medicare approved with software that turns typed words into speech. In this patient's case, however, a much cheaper ($190) iPhone app called Proloquo2Go served her needs better as a person living a mobile life. Payers do not seem to be interested in taking advantage of consumer devices' cheaper price points, which could, ultimately help curb healthcare expenditures. CMS, however, has yet to answer Seiler, Proloquo2Go and the rest of the industry's calls for a seat at the table. It's a conversation that is not taking place, and if Frost & Sullivan is right, it may not for a few more years. Until then, wireless health companies need to keep pounding on CMS' door, while proving their products ecacy and perhaps eyeing a dierent go to market strategy in the meantime.

State of the Industry

Page 19

Consumer Health: The Answer to "Who Pays?"


There are currently 1.2 million people who use mobile tness products to track their vital signs while working out. It starts with tness, but use cases for health and medical wireless health services are set to become increasingly popular. A recent ABI report found that 90 percent of the current wearable wireless sensor market is dominated by the tness industry. By 2014, the market will swell to 400 million units, thanks in large part to growing use of sensors for healthcare and medical uses. With resistance from payers and uncertainty about the stability of a business model dependent on their steady support, a number of wireless health service providers and device makers have turned to direct to consumer as the best go-to-market strategy. Others never planned to become a part of the healthcare system and focused on creating personal health devices with an eye on the consumer market from the outset. During the course of the year a number of breakthroughs occurred for the wireless health consumer play: Best Buy invited wireless health startups to pitch it for shelf space and then launched tness sections in 40 of its stores across the US; App developers created thousands of health, tness and medical iPhone applications available for download directly from the AppStore; A myriad of personal health devices began selling their services direct to consumer via online stores like Amazon. Best Buy begins selling personal health devices One of the largest big box electronics stores took an interest in personal wireless health devices this past year: At the Microsoft Connected Health Conference in June, Best Buy teamed up with Microsofts HealthVault team to invite device makers to pitch the electronics stores executives in a private meeting at the event: If you believe that your product or solution can wow healthconscious shoppers at the largest consumer electronics retailer in the United States, this is your chance to make it happen, stated the Microsoft-Best Buy invitation. The invitation also explained that outstanding solutions providers would have the opportunity to discuss collaboration opportunities with Best Buy during a special dinner later this summer. A few months later Best Buy announced that 40 of its stores in the U.S. had begun oering personal health solutions devices like pedometers, Bluetooth-enabled weight scales and blood pressure monitors. New technologies are emerging daily to help people plan, monitor, and enhance their health and tness activities, Best Buy stated in its press release. Yet nding the ways and the time to stay t and motivated can seem more complicated than ever before. Starting today, Best Buy customers in select markets from Washington, DC to Denver can turn to the nations largest consumer electronics retailer for help in satisfying their health and tness equipment and management needs.
State of the Industry Page 20

Consumer Health: The Answer to "Who Pays?"


iPhone demonstrates consumer demand for mobile health Now heres a class [of services] that we think will be really interesting: medical devices, Apple SVP of iPhone Software Scott Forstall announced at the sneak peek event for iPhone 3.0. during the summer. Forstall then explained that the new iPhone OS will allow application developers to sync medical devices like blood pressure monitors or blood glucose monitors via both Bluetooth and USB. So imagine the possibilities, Forstall continued. We think this is profound. Forstall then invited a representative from Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Lifescan who demonstrated a concept iPhone app that interfaced with a connected blood glucose meter device. Since the iPhone 3.0 event in June, medical device makers and chronic disease management service providers have all been forging mobile strategies. iTMP is one startup that was early to market with a peripheral device for the iPhone: SM Heart Link, is a wireless bridge that can collect data from wireless sensors like heart rate chest straps or cycling sensors on bikes and send them to an iPhone for display and tracking. Wireless remote monitoring company MedApps looks to be integrating its system with smartphones, including the iPhone perhaps as soon as next year. Most wireless sensor startups, including Corventis, Sotera Wireless and Proteus Biomedical have all indicated that their sensors would interface with an application on the iPhone. Those startups are not pursuing a consumer health market strategy initially, but many expect them to create cheaper, consumer versions of their sensors in the future. Of course, the market for peripheral medical devices that interface with the iPhone could be a big market opportunity, however, the real success story for the wireless health services via mobile phones in the past year has been the rise of health, tness and medical applications themselves. No other smartphone app store comes close to iPhone's thousands of healthrelated apps. From symptom navigators to chronic disease management tools; from medical reference guides to remote monitoring applications; from medication adherence apps to soothing relaxation applications. Chances are if you have thought of a potential health-related application, there's a version of it already in the iPhone App Store. BlackBerry has also begun ramping up its health-related applications in its App World store and they include a wide variety of applications many of them also oered for iPhone. BlackBerry, however, only oers a few hundred health apps compared to the thousands available for iPhones. Examples of other wireless personal health devices in the market Zeo Personal Sleep Coach - The Zeo headband uses the startup's patent-pending SoftWave sensor technology to accurately and safely measure the user's unique sleep patterns through the electrical signals produced by the brain. Zeo records those signals and can track which level of sleep the user is in and for how long based on the data. That data is then transmitted to the Zeo
State of the Industry Page 21

Consumer Health: The Answer to "Who Pays?"


alarm clock, which acts as a gateway to send the data to Zeo's server where users can log-in and review their sleep habits. Zeo is available via Amazon.com or directly from the company's website. GlowCap Vitality's GlowCap is a smart pillbox cap that can t the average pillbox. GlowCap glows dierent colors when users forget to take their medication it uses an accelerometer to determine when the pillbox is opened and makes a time stamp. The GlowCap can also alert caregivers when a person forgets to take their medication and can even call the pharmacy to get a rell. GlowCap is currently available via Amazon.com but the company does not believe direct to consumer will be its most successful distribution channel. Vitality hopes to get pharmaceutical companies or others to subsidize GlowCap for patients' use. AT&T recently announced that it would provide cellular connectivity for the product. Fitbit This personal tness device is currently sold out and on backorder, according to the company. Fitbit tracks calories burned, steps taken, distance traveled and sleep quality by using an accelerometer. Fitbit tracks its users' motion in three dimensions and converts this data into usable information about daily into useful information about your daily activities. Fitbit uses a wireless base station that is positioned in the home whenever a user walks near the basestation the data is uploaded to Fitbit.com where users can analyze their personal health data. Fitbit is sold through the company's website but it is currently out of stock and not lling new orders until January 31, 2010. Philips DirectLife Philips activity monitor DirectLife measures body acceleration in three dierent directions and combines that information with the user's age, gender, height and weight. The measurements are then converted to energy use, or calories burned. DirectLife's online program helps users establish goals and encourages and motivates users to increase their goals to exercise more in successive weeks. The device itself is tiny, smaller than a matchbox, and has no display screen. Instead it has a half dozen green LED lights that indicate to the user how close they are to meeting their exercise goal for the day. The service is currently available from the DirectLife website.

State of the Industry

Page 22

Venture Capital
Wireless Health Venture Capital in 2009

2009

There were 15 venture capital investments announced during 2009 and 11 of them were for wireless remote patient monitoring start-ups. The remainder included a start-up working on a converged platform for physician-patient communications, a smartphone app developer focused on tness games, a call-in physician consultation service, and a tablet-based patient check-in device for physician oces. While there were few, this year's investments cover a variety of wireless health business models and oerings. In September MedMarket Diligence noted that investments and other nancings in the medical device sector topped $400 million in July and August. The $22 million round that wireless health start-up CardioMEMS secured, led the pack. MedMarket predicted another $400 million in investments in medtech for the month of September alone. By October venture capitalists focused on healthcare were hedging their bets based on the direction US healthcare reform was heading: VCs like Psilos and Chrysalis looked to fund companies that help people stay healthier and manage chronic diseases, guring this is one way the government will ultimately move to take costs out of healthcare. In November following the CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment event in San Diego, where more than two dozen wireless health start-ups demonstrated their solutions, wireless industry veteran analyst Chetan Sharma predicted a lot of investment would ow into the sector in the coming days. One venture capital rm, Mohr Davidow Ventures (MDV), which invested in wireless sensor start-up Corventis in the past, told MobiHealthNews that it was actively pursuing start-ups like Corventis that collect clinically-actionable data for point-of-care. MDV was chiey interested in companies at the 510K level of FDA regulation. Products that require long, multi-year clinical trials before getting an FDA regulatory decision were not of interest. For the most part, the list of venture capital deals in the chart on the next page follow that trend.

State of the Industry

Page 23

Venture Capital
Company Amount Location Date Announced Investors
CardioMEMS $22.1 million Atlanta, GA 08/26/09

2009
Company Description
Developer of implantable wireless sensors that track cardiac output, blood pressure and heart rate (more) Developer of wireless monitoring devices, including a motion sensor that detects heart rate and respiration (more) National network of primary care physicians that diagnose illness, recommend treatment, and prescribe medication over the phone (more) Developer of wireless remote monitoring systems that track the daily activities of cared for individuals in the home (more)

Arcapita Ventures, Boston Millennium, Foundation Medical

Autonomic Technologies

$20 million

Menlo Park, CA

05/08/09

Lead Investor: InterWest Partners; Also: Kleiner Perkins Cau eld & Byers, The Developer of implantable devices that aim to Cleveland Clinic soothe severe headaches (more) Lead Investor: BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners; Also: Polaris Venture Partners, Developer of an automatic patient check-in HLM Venture Partners and device and service that aims to improve patientLong River Ventures provider relationship (more) Lead Investor: Seventure Partners; Also: ePlanet, Enterprise Ireland, and ResMed Lead Investor: HLM Venture Partners; Also: Cardinal Partners, Trident Capital Valhalla Partners, .406 Ventures.

Phreesia

$11.6 million

New York, NY

02/20/09

BiancaMed TelaDoc Medical Services

$9.8 million

Belfast, Ireland

07/20/09

$9 million

Dallas, TX

12/04/09

WellAware

$7.5 million

Charlottesville, VA

12/08/09

Myca Health

$5 million

San Francisco, CA Franklin, MA

10/06/09 12/04/09

MycaHub combines an EMR, a comprehensive admin system, and the ability for doctors to BlueCross BlueShield Venture communicate with their patients via a variety of Partners, Sandbox Industries. channels. (more) Investors include Cotswold Foundation Echo is developing a wireless blood glucose monitor for diabetics. BL's platform, TVx, gathers info from Bluetoothbased wireless medical devices at home and displays it on the TV. Developer of wireless technology for monitoring the health of expectant mothers and babies (more) Developer of medical applications for wireless and web-enabled devices (more)

Echo Therapeutics $3.6 million

BL Healthcare

$3 million

Foxborough, MA

08/06/09

undisclosed Lead Investor: PUK Ventures; Also: Catapult Venture Managers, University of Nottingham Carilion Biomedical Institute, Optimum Sensor Holdings

Monica Healthcare $1.6 million Wireless Medcare $535K

Nottingham, UK Roanoke, VA

04/27/09 12/11/09

GymFu eCardio Diagnostics

$160K undisclosed

Hampshire, UK The Woodlands, TX

12/01/09 07/01/09

Developer of motion-detecting iPhone tness apps that include peer challenges to keep users Lead Investor: Channel 4's 4iP motivated Sequoia Capital New Venture Partners, Unilever Ventures Service provider of remote cardiac monitoring for arrhythmia diagnosis (more) Developer of a personalized online tness coaching system and wireless monitoring device (more) Developer of real-time physiological and biomechanical monitoring technology for defense, rst responder, training and research markets (more)

MiLife

undisclosed

Bedford, UK

01/16/09

Zephyr Technology undisclosed

Annapolis, MD

06/18/09

Motorola Ventures

Page 24

Wirelss Health Deals


Wireless Health Industry Deals in 2009

2009

During the course of 2009, MobiHealthNews chronicled 73 business deals between two or more companies or organizations active in the emerging industry. We dened a deal as an acquisition, pilot, program, joint venture, or product or service launch in conjunction with another company. For many global rms, the fastest path to market leadership will be through acquisition, Investment rm TripleTree's research director Chris Homann told MobiHealthNews. This consolidation may not come in the same urry as weve seen in enterprise software, but some thoughtful strategic deals will begin to occur. Because many of the questions surrounding mHealth and Wireless Health solutions center on who pays for them, early M&A activity may be focused on those solutions demonstrating recurring revenue growth or meaningful end user (or patient) retention. The 73 deals summarized here could serve as a timeline for wireless health activity in the past year. The deals are ordered chronologically, beginning with AllOne Health's massive pilot with the U.S. Army, which licensed AllOne Mobile for more than 10,000 wounded warriors managing traumatic brain injuries. The charts on the following pages are testament to the work accomplished this year by wireless health companies, and it points to many more deals in 2010.

Page 25

Wirelss Health Deals


Company A Company B, etc. What was the deal?
Army to pilot AllOne Mobile to stay in touch with wounded warriors AllOne Health, Diversinet through their mobiles. (more) 01/14/09

Date Announced Other details?

Q1

U.S. Army

Army licensed the technology for 10,000 soldiers, speci cally those with traumatic brain injuries. The Mobile Viewer allows users to view but not edit pro le information as well as current prescriptions, existing health conditions, known allergies and more. KP worked with Mobilestorm for the pilot, which showed 0.73 fewer no shows. National rollout to follow. As part of the announcement, IBM said it had integrated its Information Management, Business Intelligence and WebSphere Premises Server sensor event platform into Google Health already. The group will focus on ve key areas, one being: enterprise collaboration and ehealth. The mHealth Alliance aims to bring together the major mHealth stakeholders for the developing world. MobilizeMRS rebranded to FrontlineSMS:Medic following the deal. Ohio Health expects iShoe to hit the market in 2010 with a pricepoint of $100. Allscripts launched its own iPhone app a few weeks later. AllOne Health's users in the Army look to be the rst to bene t.

Google

Anvita Mobile

Anvita developed a mobile viewer of Google Health for Android. (more) 02/05/09 Completed a pilot for text message appointment reminders. (more)

Kaiser Permanente

Mobilestorm

02/05/09

IBM

IBM and Continua to create guidelines for wireless medical Continua Health Alliance, devices to connect to Google Health. Google (more) 02/12/09 Companies formed, ng Connect, a group for vendors looking to create next-gen wireless devices with AlcaLu. (more)

Alcatel-Lucent

Motorola, HP, Samsung, others

02/16/09

Vodafone Foundation

UN Foundation

The Foundations teamed up with the Rockefeller Foundation to create the mHealth Alliance. (more) 02/17/09 MobilizeMRS taps FrontlineSMS platform for its work in global health. (more) 02/24/09 Ohio Health pilots the smart innersole for fall prevention. (more) 02/26/09

MobilizeMRS Ohio Health

FrontlineSMS iShoe

Allscripts AllOne Health

Edge Health Clickatell

Edge Health to embed Allscript's EMR into its iPhone app, EdgeRPM. (more) 03/04/09 Clickatell enables text messaging for AllOne Mobile. (more) 03/11/09

AllOne Health

Signi ca Insurance Group The health plans' members can view, and Erin Group manage and exchange their health Administrators info with their providers. (more) 03/16/09 Rady Children's pilots GI's Pillcam, a tiny wireless camera inside a pill. (more)

The deals made AllOne Mobile available to more than 400,000 people total. Joshua Devine, a high school sophomore, swallowed the Pillcam at Grady's one of the rst patients to do so. The grant was for $285,000 Australian dollars. ANT+ is an alternative short range wireless technology to ZigBee or Bluetooth. Qualcomm's Don Jones and Scripps' Dr. Eric Topol join as part of the Institute's founding board.

Rady Children's Hospital

Given Imaging Murdoch Children's Research Institute

03/17/09

Telstra Foundation

Telstra Foundation funded a two year mobile project for mental health services. (more) 03/25/09 Microsoft to allow personal health devices to connect to HealthVault via ANT+. (more) 03/25/09 GMWF donated $45M to create the West Wireless Health Institute. (more) 03/30/09

Microsoft Gary and Mary West Foundation

ANT Wireless Qualcomm, Scripps Health

Page 26

Wirelss Health Deals


Company A Company B, etc. What was the deal?
Verizon Wireless launches 4G innovation center with Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson. (more) 04/01/09 Intel and GE announce partnership for home health monitoring and contribute $250 million to R&D. (more) CardioNet agrees to buy Biotel and enter clinical research. (more)

Date Announced Other details?

Q2

Verizon Wireless

Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson

The center will focus on three key verticals: healthcare, utility and security. GE will market Intel's Health Guide as part of the deal, which also focuses on wireless sensors for the senior care market. The deal eventually falls through. The services could become part of Jitterbug's Service Store its version of an App Store. MedApps currently uses a dedicated wireless device to route data from connected medical devices. Later in the year, Novartis announces a trial with Proteus unclear if it's a separate deal. Medzio continues to add a few new partners throughout the year, but the app's sum does not appear to be more popular than its parts.

Intel CardioNet

General Electric (GE) Biotel

04/02/09 04/02/09

GreatCall / Jitterbug

Jitterbug pilots a medication adherence service from Meridian and a diabetes management service from Meridian Health, WellDoc WellDoc. (more) 04/03/09 RPM company MedApps connects devices' data streams to Microsoft's HealthVault. (more)

MedApps

Microsoft

04/12/09

Proteus Biomedical

Proteus announces two drug companies will trial its intelligent Two undisclosed pharma medicine technology and sensor. companies (more) A.D.A.M. announces Medzio, a collaborative mobile app suite from the newly formed Mobile Health Network. (more) Doylestown Hospital becomes rst hospital pro led on Apple's site for equipping its care workers with iPhones throughout its facility. (more) The three companies teamed up to work on smart innersoles for fall prevention. (more)

04/14/09

A.D.A.M.

HelloHealth, Norton, LiveStrong, others

04/21/09

Doylestown Hospital

Apple Texas Instruments, 24Eight

04/30/09

The hospital connected the iPhones to their Meditech EMR system and also noticed doctors favor Epocrates. The collaboration results in AT&T's smart slippers for fall prevention, unveiled in December.

AT&T

05/26/09

Jitterbug

Samsung, Qualcomm

Senior phone service provider Jitterbug worked with phone maker Samsung on its new Jitterbug J phone and Qualcomm to create a more seamless data connectivity for users. The phone and data connectivity enable the company's Services Store. (more) 06/02/09 Remote cardiac monitoring company LifeWatch signed an exclusive agreement with Verizon to use its network to carry its wireless health services. (more) 06/04/09 The White House is working with a number of industry partners to launch a free text messaging service, called Text4Baby, for low-income expectant mothers. (more) 06/05/09 Interoperability consortium Continua certi ed Nonin's Bluetooth-enabled pulse oximeter. (more) 06/09/09 Partners Healthcare in Boston spun out a start-up, named Connected Health for now, with an initial service around a wireless blood pressure cu . (more) 06/16/09 The Institute announced plans to conduct clinical trials for Corventis and shepherd the sensor to market. (more)

Jitterbug added 1xCDMA data to its phones but it didn't want the users to know they had Internet-enabled phones perhaps too daunting.

Verizon Wireless

LifeWatch

LifeWatch is a big competitor to CardioNet.

White House

Voxiva, CDC, J&J, CTIA, more

Text4Baby originally aimed to launch in September but has since been delayed until next year. This marks the rst wireless health device with Continua certi cation.

Continua Health Alliance

Nonin

Partners Healthcare

Connected Health

Connected Health just completed a pilot with EMC, which used the cu for corporate wellness programs. Dr. Eric Topol and other Institute directors demo Corventis' monitoring sensor at events all year long.

West Wireless Health Institute

Corventis

06/23/09

Page 27

Wirelss Health Deals

Q3

Company A

Company B, etc.

What was the deal?


Roche inked a deal with diabetes app developer MYLEstone Health to include some of Roche's diabetes management software into the company's Glucose Buddy application. (more) WellAware to out t the outpatient centers with wireless sensors for senior care. (more) Centura Health signed on as the rst sponsored listing in Healthagen's iTriage smartphone application. (more) Highmark CMS slashed CardioNet's reimbursement rate by one third. (more) Modavox bought Augme Mobile, a mobile marketing company for an undisclosed sum. (more) Bayer created Didget a blood glucose meter that plugs into Nintendo DS portable game system. (more) CallMD joins A.D.A.M.'s Medzio Mobile Health Network. (more) The pilot involves getting physicians access to patient data while they are on their way to the bedside. (more) Digital sales and health marketing company Physicians Interactive (PI) acquired mobile medical content publisher Skyscape for an undisclosed sum. (more) Verizon Wireless and Qualcomm form a joint venture called nPhase to manage machine-to-machine services, including many wireless health o erings. Patient at the hospital is rst to receive wireless-enabled, remote monitoring pace maker. (more)

Date Announced Other details?

Roche Diagnostics

WellAware

MYLEstone Health Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society, Hastin

07/01/09

MYLEstone saw the deal as a baby step for the industry and was fed up with hype around meter integration into smartphones. WellAware only launched a few weeks before the announcement.

07/01/09

Healthagen / iTriage

Centura Health

07/08/09

Healthagen's iTriage helps users determine wait times at hospitals. The move followed months of rumors and sent the company's stock plummeting. Augme Mobile Health is the start-up's wireless health focused marketing arm. Quickly becomes a focus at Modavox.

Highmark CMS

CardioNet

07/13/09

Modavox

Augme Mobile

07/15/09

Bayer Healthcare CallMD Department of Veterans A airs

Nintendo A.D.A.M.

07/16/09 07/17/09

mVisum

07/21/09

The peripheral could spark a healthy games movement. CallMD will license A.D.A.M. Symptom navigator content, too. The pilot became public after the VA announced it would tighten the belt on pilot spending.

Skyscape

Physicians Interactive

07/27/09

Skyscape has long created mobile applications for healthcare workers dating back to PDAs.

Verizon Wireless

Qualcomm

07/28/09

nPhase also took over managing CardioNet's service as part of the deal. The pacemaker connects to the server at least once a day to make reports.

St. Francis Hospital

St. Jude Medical

08/10/09

Page 28

Wirelss Health Deals

Q3
Continued

Company A

Company B, etc.

What was the deal?


The store chain teamed up with Microsoft to invite wireless health device makers to pitch it to carry their products. (more) Verizon Wireless certi ed Panasonic's Toughbook H1 to run on its network. (more) Jitterbug switched over to Verizon Wireless' network from Sprint. (more) Harvard Pilgrim will pilot MedMinder's wireless-enabled PillBox for CKD patients. (more) The carrier is working with the M2M company to accelerate time to market for healthcare services and connected devices. (more) Halo's myHalo wireless monitoring o ering now synchs to Microsoft HealthVault. (more) Novartis has tapped Proteus for a small, 20 patient study to track compliance with a blood pressure drug regimen. (more) GE and Sprint installed a converged wireless network at the company's six hospitals. (more) AirStrip inked a purchasing agreement with the alliance, which has 2,200 hospital members. (more) DeviceAnywhere tests the wireless health service's for QoS. (more)

Date Announced Other details?


Best Buy launched tness sections at its stores with some connected health products a few months later. The H1 was speci cally designed for clinicians and based on extensive research conducted by Intel and Panasonic. Jitterbug also announced it was now pro table. Chronic kidney disease a ects about 26 million people and has no cure, but it can be managed.

Best Buy

Microsoft

08/20/09

Verizon Wireless Verizon Wireless Harvard Pilgrim Health Care

Panasonic GreatCall / Jitterbug

08/27/09 08/27/09

MedMinder

08/31/09

Sprint

DataSmart

09/03/09

Halo Monitoring

Microsoft

09/09/09

According to one estimate: 430 million M2M devices will ship in 2013 myHalo wirelessly transmits secure vital signs, activities of daily living, and critical event info.

Novartis

Proteus Biomedical

09/22/09

Novartis told reporters (inexplicably) that the deal could become exclusive. Methodist may hire more nurses thanks to the savings from the network, reportedly. AirStrip had more than 100 customers at the time. DA noted an uptick in wireless health services looking to test QoS in 2009.

Methodist Healthcare

GE, Sprint Premier Healthcare Alliance EosHealth, StratREF, Sensei

09/23/09

AirStrip DeviceAnywhere

09/29/09 09/30/09

Page 29

Wirelss Health Deals

Q4

Company A

Company B, etc.

What was the deal?

Date Announced Other details?


Keas is a care program store care professionals design care plans for consumers to buy.

Keas

Former Google Health head launches Microsoft, Google, others online health site Keas. (more) 10/06/09 VZW o ers home health care workers application called OnCare, which was created by Xora. (more) 10/08/09 Voalte's iPhone-enabled voice, alarm, text service is piloted at Sarasota Memorial Hospital. (more) 10/08/09 AT&T will provide connectivity for Vitality's GlowCaps medication adherence device. (more)

Verizon Wireless Sarasota Memorial Hospital

Xora

The app costs about $35 a month. Voalte becomes a hit with nurses there, looks to move to other wards. GlowCaps light up when a patient needs to take medication, send texts and can even call the pharmacy for re lls. While just a concept app, it could point to opportunities for health games with sensors.

Voalte

AT&T

Vitality

10/09/09

Corventis

USC

USC develops an iPhone game called BeatingHeart, that demonstrates Corventis' wireless sensor capabilities. (more) 10/14/09 Apple teams up with Epic Systems to integrate iPhones into Epic's EMR o ering at Stanford Hospital and Clinics. (more) 10/14/09 Cinterion powers connectivity for Diabetech's 4th generation wireless diabetes management platform, GlucoMON. (more) USC and Boston Scienti c created a demo iPhone app for BS's Latitude application. (more) The two companies create a smartphone speci cally for hospital workers called the Vocera Smartphone. (more)

Apple

Epic Systems

Expect a full product launch in early 2010.

Cinterion Wireless Modules

Diabetech

10/15/09

Diabetes is a key condition targeted by many wireless health start-ups. Latitude enables physicians to monitor implanted devices.

Boston Scienti c

USC

10/23/09

Motorola

Vocera

10/27/09

Arkansas Children's Hospital was a beta user for the device.

AllOne Health

Connectyx

AllOne Mobile will be packaged with health info on a USB drive company, Connectyx's MediFlash o ering. (more) 11/02/09 London-based St. Mary's Hospital will trial Toumaz's wireless sensor for vital sign monitoring. (more) 11/02/09

The deal puts AOM in Walgreens, Harris Teeter, Krogers and other retail locations. The bandaid-like sensor monitors skin temperature, heart rate and respiration.

St. Mary's Hospital

Toumaz Holdings

Page 30

Wirelss Health Deals

Q4
Continued

Company A

Company B, etc.

What was the deal?


Roche will pilot NeurVigil's iBrain wireless sensors for clinical trials involving CNS disorders. (more)

Date Announced Other details?


NeuroVigil's iBrain captures the user's brain's EEG signals wirelessly. Jitterbug plans to integrate the MPERS into its phones for now no external medallion.

Roche Diagnostics

NeuroVigil

11/02/09

GreatCall / Jitterbug

MobiWatch

Jitterbug acquired mobile personal emergency response service (MPERS) start-up MobiWatch for an undisclosed sum. (more) 11/04/09 Mount Sinai tested CareSpeak's text messaging adherence program for teenage liver transplant patients. (more)

Mount Sinai Hospital

CareSpeak

11/05/09

The program remarkably reduced rejection episodes for the patients. The system will monitor heart rate, breathing rate, and physical activity.

Mayo Clinic

STMicroelectronics

Mayo and STM are collaborating on a wireless cardiac monitoring service. (more) 11/05/09

GSM Association

GSMA and the university plan to establish a wireless health innovation University of Manchester center in Manchester. (more) 11/11/09 Research In Motion has brought MedAptus, a charge capture o ering for physicians, to its BlackBerry devices. (more) 11/19/09 Remote wound care service WTN inked a two year agreement with AT&T for connectivity. It also inked a deal with HTC to use the Fuze smartphone. (more)

It will have a UK-focus in the beginning.

Research In Motion / BlackBerry

MedAptus

MedAptus brought three versions of its o ering to BlackBerry. WTN uses wireless networks to access patient records, review visuals and more. WTN used to work through Verizon Wireless.

AT&T, HTC

Wound Technology Network

11/23/09

Intel Johns Hopkins School of Nursing

VA, Memorial Hospital & Health System, others Intel, Clearwire

Intel announced a number of Indianabased customers for its Intel Health Guide device for the home health market. (more) 11/24/09 Intel is piloting its Intel Health Guide at JH School of Nursing. (more) 11/30/09

The Health Guide added wireless connectivity this year. The devices will run on Clearwire's new WiMAX network in Baltimore.

GE

Living Independently Group

GE bought LIG for an undisclosed amount. LIG's o ering QuietCare uses infrared sensors to remotely monitor patients in senior care facilities. (more) 12/02/09 Novartis is working with IBM and Vodafone to bring SMS For Life campaign to Tanzania. (more)

GE owned a minority stake in LIG prior to the acquisition. The service aims to improve availability of anti-malarial drugs in remote areas.

Novartis

IBM, Vodafone

12/14/09

Page 31

A Step-By-Step How-to for Wireless Health Regulation


FDA may regulate certain mobile phones, accessories By Bradley Merrill Thompson, Partner, Epstein Becker & Green, P.C. It can come as a bit of a shock to people in the consumer electronics, IT and telecommunications industries that FDA might regulate certain equipment like cell phones that companies are planning to put at the center of connected health services. My goal is to outline the factors that FDA considers when deciding whether to regulate such equipment. Dening a medical device The natural place to start is with the denition of a medical device. Since it is so central to the analysis, Im going to quote the statute verbatim. Section 201(h) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act denes a medical device as: an instrument, apparatus, implement, machine, contrivance, implant, in vitro reagent, or other similar or related article, including any component, part, or accessory, which is [either] intended for use in the diagnosis of disease or other conditions, or in the cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease, in man or other animals [or] intended to aect the structure or any function of the body of man or other animals. So at a high-level, we look for two things: (1) a device with (2) a medical intended use. The rst prong of the test that there must be an actual product means FDA doesnt regulate, for example, medical procedures. The thing in question must be a thing, and not information or something else intangible. Software can be a medical device if its written on computer media, as opposed to printed on paper. The media with the code written on it is enough of a thing for FDA to regulate. Continued Online: http://mobihealthnews.com/3177/fda-may-regulate-certainmobile-phones-accessories/ Step-by-step: FDA wireless health regulation In contrast to components that are simply sold to another manufacturer, standalone medical devices and accessories sold to end users may require some form of premarket clearance or approval. Once you know you have an FDA-regulated device or accessory, heres how you gure that out, following a ve-step process. Step one. Figure out the most appropriate classication for your product. There is a bit of both art and science to this. FDA has published about 1700 classication regulations. Each of those regulations has a description or identication of the types of devices
State of the Industry Page 32

A Step-By-Step How-to for Wireless Health Regulation


covered by that regulation. FDA has a searchable database of these regulations accessible through their website. Some articles of hardware and software are so important that FDA has separately classied them, and you can nd them directly through searching. The regulations are organized by clinical application so all of the orthopedic devices, for example, are in one part of the regulations. So you might get lucky and nd one that directly describes your product. A quick search of the regulations revealed that the word computer appears in 225 regulations, software in 431 and network in 43. There is, for example, a classication for remote medication management systems in 21 CFR 880.6315. But if you cant nd one that directly describes your product, perhaps its because FDA considers your product to be merely an accessory to a parent device. Ill give you an example. Last month FDA cleared an updated version of the Polytel glucose meter accessory, which is a small module that plugs into the port of a glucose meter, receives data from the meter and transfers it wirelessly to an Internet capable communication device like a cell phone or an APT. In clearing the device, FDA agreed with its classication in 21 CFR 862.1345, which covers all glucose test systems, including the parent glucose meters. Step two. Read the second half of the classication regulation to see how FDA regulates that particular article. FDA will assign each product into one of three classications, cleverly called class I, II and III. Class I devices represent the least risk, while class III represent the greatest. Associated with those classications are specic regulatory requirements. Many class I devices will be exempt from premarket clearance, and some products will be exempt from other regulatory requirements that Ill describe in a minute. Some class I and most class II devices require ling a premarket notication (or 510(k)) with FDA. These submissions are manageable documents that compare the new device to those lawfully on the market. The specic data requirements are discuss below. The highest risk devices-class III-usually require premarket approval (PMA) from FDA, which can cost millions. Most IT devices can avoid that, unless they are an accessory to a high risk device. If your device is classied as an accessory, it is subject to all of the regulatory requirements applicable to the parent device. Step three. Research the requirements. FDA has published scads of guidance documents on its website that cover many dierent aspects of the technologies they regulate. There are guidance documents on using wireless technologies, o-the-shelf software, and specic medical technologies such as blood glucose meters. Its important you nd all of these so-called special controls because youll need to make sure that your product complies with those technical standards.
State of the Industry Page 33

A Step-By-Step How-to for Wireless Health Regulation


Steps Four and Five Continued Online: http://mobihealthnews.com/4050/step-by-step-fdawireless-health-regulation/ How to get FDA to clear a mobile health app Its important to remember that medical devices, including software, can be divided into three categories: (1) standalone devices, (2) accessories and (3) components. Standalone are those devices that are intended to directly provide the diagnostic or treatment, while accessories are sold directly to end-users and work with standalone devices. Components, in contrast, are purchased by manufacturers of standalone or accessory devices for incorporation before sale. Mobile device (e.g. cell phone apps) can be an accessory, as opposed to a component, if they are sold or even given directly to the end-user: the patient. They can also be standalone if they do not connect physically or virtually to any device other than the mobile device platform. Understanding that is important because determines the regulatory requirements that apply. If the app is designed, for example, to facilitate the downloading of information from a blood glucose meter, the app and maybe even the software environment are accessories and will be regulated in the same manner as the blood glucose meter. The classication and most of the requirements for the submission to FDA will be dictated by how the parent standalone device is regulated. So, the Airstrip OB app is regulated as part of a perinatal monitoring system generally, just as the sensors and other hardware that gather the information. Some apps will not be simply enablers of transmitting data from a medical device, but will actually serve a standalone purpose. From the prior two articles, remember that its the claims the software developer/seller choose to make, within reason, that triggers FDA regulation in the rst place, and the degree of that regulation when it comes to obtaining clearance. Continued Online: http://mobihealthnews.com/5626/how-to-get-fda-to-clear-amobile-health-app/

State of the Industry

Page 34

The Year in Conclusion

The Year in Conclusion

While this report could not discuss every deal or development in wireless health this past year, it should serve as a reference point for the year ahead as well as a snapshot of an industry in its infancy. Next year will bring substantial revenue growth for the industry, increased capital investment, a number of strategic acquisitions and little progress on reimbursement from payers. Many wireless carriers only recently established dedicated healthcare business units, which may begin to launch products by the end of next year. Some of the newly founded institute's are working to ll leadership, while others were only founded a few weeks ago. Care provider groups are largely experimenting with pilots and looking for signs of ecacy from budding wireless health services. Direct to consumer health products are mostly only available via online stores, but the big box electronics stores are beginning to take notice. These are still early days, but they are busy ones.

State of the Industry

Page 35

You might also like