Posted By Garrett Clarke
Sr. Bus Development and Strategy Manager
As many of my colleagues have mentioned in their blogs over the past few months, we are seeing an increasing trend from autonomous devices toward ones that are truly connected and part of a much broader ecosystem. This shift in the embedded industry toward Intelligent Systems is further accelerated by the desire of enterprises to obtain a competitive advantage through increased knowledge about their customers and their business. It is truly an exciting time as the number of devices that are part of an Intelligent System is expected to nearly double by 2015 according to IDC. Clearly the application for Intelligent Systems spans many industries including Retail, Manufacturing, Auto, and Health. However, since I have spent the last 10 years (or so) working in healthcare, I wanted to share some of the thoughts I have on some usage scenarios of Intelligent Systems in health.
Enabling the Connection to the Patient at Home:
The impact that Intelligent Systems have on the healthcare has many similarities to that of other industries (i.e. reuse of data, cost reduction, timely access to information….) but it also has some distinct advantages. Most importantly, improved outcomes for patients. Many device manufacturers are now making devices that patients can use at home that will automatically connect the patient back to the provider or caregiver through the cloud. This streamlined integration increases the frequency that a provider or caregiver receives critical health metrics (blood pressure, blood glucose levels, weight, etc.). These “Connected Health” scenarios allows for greater collaboration across the provider, patient, and caregiver potentially allowing action to be taken prior to an acute event occurring.