Mobile health trials underway to allow remote monitoring

Guess which disease killed a third of Singaporeans in 2009 ?

Cardiovascular diseases accounted for more than 31 percent of all deaths in Singapore in 2009.

Major companies in Singapore, namely, HP, SingTel, HealthSTATS and Frontier Healthcare Group, announced its plan of conducting an 8-week clinical trial of a mobile health monitoring solution.

The solution enables near real time information sharing to help healthcare professionals in the early detection, treatment and prevention of cardiovascular conditions.

To effectively treat these diseases, medical professionals require regular updates on their patients’ blood pressure data.

To improve patient monitoring, the four companies are collaborating on a clinical trial of the HP Mobile Health Monitoring Solution, to wirelessly link clinics, doctors and patients via SingTel’s 3G/GRPS mobile network. As part of the trial, 100 patients from Frontier Healthcare Group in Singapore will wear a watch-like monitoring device, the HealthSTATS’ wireless BPro®. HealthSTATS’ proprietary software translates the patient data into meaningful clinical readings, including 24-hour blood pressure and heartbeat patterns. The information is relayed wirelessly to a centralised healthcare data repository powered by SingTel’s cloud infrastructure.

HP integrates the different components and technologies into a single health monitoring solution. HP provides the mobile application, 24-hour blood pressure monitoring and data aggregation. HP brings this together with the service portal, where doctors’ comments, patient medical diaries and graphical clinical readings can be accessed anytime on an Internet-connected device.

Frontier Healthcare Group will provide additional post-trial expertise to fine-tune the patients' interface with the technology and refine the doctor-patient engagement made possible with this new level of health monitoring.

"HealthSTATS is confident that this mobile health monitoring solution will eventually replace static home monitoring devices and rewrite the way doctors and patients interact," said Dr. Ting Choon Meng, CEO of HealthSTATS. "With the trial of this new platform, doctors will be fully apprised of the patient’s hypertensive condition almost in real time, making early intervention of blood pressure-related diseases a reality. Garnering accurate diagnoses and seeking effective medical treatment will result in substantial savings in medical costs and a marked improvement in a patient’s quality of life."

"Since common chronic conditions, such as hypertension, may remain undiagnosed in some patients, access to the most accurate and up to date health information can save many lives," said Lloyd Oki, vice president of Asia Pacific Sales, Communications & Media Solutions, HP. "With its mobile and IT leadership, HP is enabling healthcare providers like Frontier to become Instant-On Enterprises by converging the mobile ecosystem with healthcare services. Instant-On healthcare connects patients to their doctors and healthcare professionals anywhere, anytime."