Although the adaptation of wireless technologies in health home monitoring solutions is still nascent, there are strong indicators of that remote data monitoring and distant disease management solutions are vital parts of tomorrow’s health care system. Examples of common conditions that increasingly will be monitored at home are irregular heartbeats or cardiac arrhythmia, high blood pressure, the glucose levels in diabetes, and high levels of lipids or fats in the blood. M2M communications solutions makes this possible.

How can Telenor Connexion help?

Home monitoring and remote disease management solutions is of course dependent upon a secure and reliable communication solution suited for the specific usage scenario whilst using specific remote terminals. Our experience from integration of connectivity into various real-time critical solutions will help you design a cost-effective, secure and reliable solution to meet the high demands from the healthcare sector. Our global reach will enable you to standardise the connectivity solution into your product no matter where the product is produced, sold or used.

“eHealth” covers many different application areas, but one of the most interesting ones is home monitoring of chronic diseases. Treatment of chronic diseases is estimated to account for over 70 percent of the total healthcare costs in Europe. The market for home wireless monitoring in healthcare is still in an early phase, but is moving quickly. Among the most common conditions to monitor at home are irregular heartbeats or cardiac arrhythmia, high blood pressure, glucose levels in diabetes, and high levels of lipids or fats in the blood. A recent study from Berg Insight estimates that in Europe and North America 40 million people have cardiac arrhythmia, 200 million people have high blood pressure, 60 million people are diabetic, and 180 million people have severe elevation of blood lipids. All these diseases are increasing as a result of people getting older and heavier, and all are major causes of high healthcare costs.

The overall movement towards digital home monitoring equipment also paves the way for an increasing demand of transferring data to the care-giver in a secure and reliable way. Wireless communication capabilities are increasingly being built into medical devices to be used as stand alone or together with a personal mobile phone. One of the key drivers is to secure efficient access to real-time data independently on location. Combined with Internet based health portals this provides a strong platform for increased usage of remote patient monitoring. Other applications within the eHealth sector also include ambient assisted living (AAL), i.e. monitoring of the well-being of elderly of people at risk and also personal emergency response systems (PERS) such as emergency call alarms etc.

Telenor Connexion is working closely with various providers of eHealth solutions to secure the best possible integration of reliable and secure communication solutions for different kinds of applications and devices.