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Laboratory News
Cambridge Consultants Releases Vena Platform to Transmit Health Data Wirelessly
Recognizing that patients will be involved in monitoring their
health, instrument manufacturers and software companies are scrambling to develop
ways to empower patients to monitor their own healthcare. One early product to empower patients was announced
in March by Cambridge Consultants.
Called the "Vena" platform, it is a software solution on a
single chip that allows medical devices such as blood pressure monitors to
transmit data wirelessly. Vena enables consumers,
especially those with chronic conditions, to monitor their health accurately,
systematically and independently.
Vena uses low-cost wireless technology and allows devices to
deliver medical readings to a central monitor located in a home. It can also
feed data to online health record services such as Google Health or Microsoft
Health Vault.
These online health services allow
consumers to manage their own health data securely. Patients can choose to share that data with
one or multiple providers. Because it is
stored at a single, consumer-controlled location, the patient's different healthcare
providers can easily access thi data.
The Vena platform can be used with multiple devices,
connecting them to online records through a monitoring station, home PC, or set
top box. In its initial tests, the chip
was integrated with a pulse oximeter and with weighing scales. The Vena platform and chip can even be used
to transmit data via mobile phone for health and fitness applications on the
move.
What gives this new connectivity solution appeal is its low
cost. Designers predict that, given sufficient manufacturing volume, Vena
software solution can be added to a medical device for under US $10. Vena may be available in medical devices as
early as the end of this year.
Laboratories should take heed of this latest attempt to
enable patients to monitor their own healthcare. It may only be a small step forward in time for
miniaturized, fully-automated diagnostic analyzers to hit the market. This news brings the day closer when these
devices will be used by consumers to conduct their own laboratory tests and to feed
that data to their care team and into their personal health record.
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