Glooko
In March 2009, Apple hosted an event to introduce the iPhone OS 3.0 software. What I really found interesting back then was a prototype showcased with Lifescan (a J&J company), where they demonstrated how a user could manage her diabetes using an iPhone-accessory glucometer. It was a much needed evolutionary conceptual leap for a widely-used consumer medical device category. Turns out that...
Read MoreEASYWAKEme
Sleep monitoring related offerings started surfacing in the consumer market couple of years ago. More recently EASYWAKEme, another European startup, has thrown it’s hat in the ring. While reviewing Zeo and aXbo last year, I found myself wondering what was the need for having a bedside clock hardware, since most of that computing could be done in a smartphone. Seems like the crop of...
Read MoreVoxiva
On the continuum of healthcare IT solutions, there are two distant ends. One extreme can be thought of as the complex, medical-grade enterprise EHR systems that cater to large institutions and mainly providers. The other would then be a consumer-grade solution that is designed for delivering health interventions to the masses. The latter is where Voxiva‘s offerings lie. Voxiva provides...
Read MoreCelltrak
Accounting for only 7.2% employment in healthcare, Home Healthcare is perhaps one of the lesser known and advertised sub-markets in the industry. It serves patients who prefer to stay at home but need ongoing care that cannot easily or effectively be provided solely by family or friends. These providers deliver a wide variety of health care and supportive services like professional nursing,...
Read MoreBasis
The concept of sensor-based connected devices that help consumers manage a healthy lifestyle is certainly gaining traction. Consider FitBit, Zeo, DirectLife, miCoach, BodyMedia, GreenGoose as examples. It was only a matter of time before a startup in this space decided to go with a watch-like form factor. I first heard about MyBasis during a talk given by Bharat Vasan (founder?) at Bay Area...
Read MoreHealthrageous
The wireless remote health monitoring market is white hot these days. Seems like a lot of creative folks are looking at the increasing ability of connected devices, sensors and wondering why aren’t these disrupting healthcare. Some luminary research centers rooted in academic institutions have found enough financial support to establish formal presence specifically in this space. West...
Read MorePillPhone
Currently there are a number of hardware-based solutions in the market that aim to help the patient take the right medication at the right time. The conventional options of boxes, organizers, dispensers, watches etc have been there for the longest time. The last few years have seen devices get a bit smarter with phone, internet, cellular connectivity and some built-in decision support (alerts,...
Read MoreWelldoc
Patient Monitoring is one of the mature, established markets in healthcare industry. A promising trend in that is the emerging ‘Remote Patient Monitoring’ (RPM) paradigm. (If you don’t know much about RPM, this 2009 report from Frost.com is one of most insightful ones out there. It requires paid subscription though). The underlying concept is nothing new in medical device...
Read MoreDoximity
Doximity is a mobile-based social network for physicians. It brings back memories of Sermo, which was my first review, written more than two years ago. Doximity was started by Jeff Tangney who was also one of the co-founders of Epocrates- an extremely popular physician information tools vendor that recently filed for an IPO in July 2010. The free app is currently only available for iPhone...
Read MoreTouchDx
Neurologic examinations are unique in medicine. Unlike other fields of medicine in which one can touch (surgery, orthopedics) or see the disease (eg, dermatology, ophthalmology), neurologic conditions often manifest in cryptic ways. Which is why simple clinical examination done with basic tools (reflex hammer, tuning fork, pin…) are always relevant for initial evaluation. Touch Diagnostics...
Read MoreMedWatcher
Drug safety surveillance (more formally, pharmacovigilence) is a serious and complex issue. Once a drug is FDA-approved and on the market, it needs to be constantly monitored for long/short-term side effects. That process is currently rigid: once observed conclusively, these effects are reported by providers to relevant authorities and disseminated back to all medical community (after some lag...
Read MoreAsthmapolis
Asthmapolis is brainchild of David Van Sickle a researcher at University of Wisconsin-Madison. The basic idea is to equip inhalers with a GPS tag to determine when and where was it used by the patient. When such individual (de-identified, of course) medication data is aggregated, it can provide population care insight like environmental triggers and disease impact. Seems like there are three...
Read MoreScanAvert
In the last few years, bar code scanning with smartphones has become much more robust and dependable functionality. Predictably enough, it’s main application has been in real-time comparison shopping and product information area, giving rise to new services like RedLaser (recently acquired by eBay). ScanAvert is an interesting paid application of the same functionality. It allows users to...
Read MoreiTriage
iTriage is a mobile app that helps users understand, prioritize their acute health-related symptoms and seek appropriate and close-by care. Its service is also available on the web at iTriageHealth. At the core is a symptom-checker that lets users do a high-level categorization of what could be wrong with them, and how serious/not can it be. That functionality is nothing special, since there are...
Read MoreText4Baby
Text4baby is a service that delivers periodic text messages to expecting mothers reminding them of basic healthcare needs. It’s a free mobile information service designed to promote healthy pregnancy, and given that US that the second worst IMR of all developed countries, it makes sense. Women who sign up for the service by texting BABY to 511411 will receive free (i.e. not charged to the...
Read MoreWithings
I’ll admit right away that this post is more about the trend, and not the product itself. Withings is a french start-up that introduced a wi-fi enabled weight scale in late 2009. The device can send your data (weight, BMI, body fat, lean mass etc) wirelessly over the internet. So you can track it for free either online on Withings.com website or through an iPhone app. It made some waves...
Read MoreProactive Sleep
In general, I really like the idea of using personal mobile computing devices in treating/preventing chronic conditions. As devices and sensors get smarter and cheaper, it’s logical that they start playing role in helping individuals deal with chronic, lifestyle affecting conditions like migraines, sleep disorders, allergies, dysmenorrhea, depression etc. Proactive Sleep provides a...
Read MoreZeaLOG
Good ideas are always simple. I’m really optimistic about the emerging simple tools that let consumers manage, monitor or understand their health issues better. ZeaLOG is a simple tracker that lets you measure anything, and report off it. The service seems pretty new and driven by a team of one, so there are some rough edges here and there. Most of the ZeaLOGs started are around profound...
Read MorePolka
Polka‘s mission is to make your up-to-date basic health information available to you all the time, on the web or your iPhone. They claim that their ‘secure aggregation and collaboration service’ can help users manage their health. Here is what they offer: My Health – An application to store your basic health information (allergies, meds, diagnosis, emergency contacts, and...
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