aXbo
More products designed around actigraphy keep surfacing. aXbo is a ‘Sleep Phase Alarm Clock’ by an Austrian company. The basic idea is to differentiate sleep phases (light, deep, REM) using body movements that are detected via a motion-sensor worn on the wrist. The bedside clock unit has other features like power naps, auto sleep melody fade, use for two people, smart alarm etc. A...
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 MoreZeo
I wrote about Proactive Sleep a while back and wondered how it would be to combine a sensor to automatically record sleep pattern. Well, Zeo gets one step closer to that. Zeo system consists of a wearable headband that measure brain’s natural electrical activity. Although their blog has a high-level explanation of how it works, my understanding is that its a single-channel EEG, which seems...
Read MoreDirectLife
Royal Philips International seems to be placing its bets on some innovative healthcare IT markets. Here are some that I’ve noticed in the past couple of years: VISICU (a remote ICU monitoring technology company acquired in 2007) Digital Pathology (commercial offering in 2009) Motiva (Remote patient management and education delivered through television) TeleStation (In-home hub for two-way...
Read MoreBedpost
Here is a half-baked idea that adds another data point to my rant about how keeping a record of health-related activities is useful, and how web 2.0 technologies can help enable such a record. Bedpost is a web application (currently in private beta) that helps in keeping track of user’s sex life. I’ve not used the site myself, but they claim simple functionality- log in after the fact...
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 MoreNavigenics
As I mentioned previously, the hype of personalized medicine is breeding a new industry-direct to consumer (DTC) Genetic Testing. These companies offer to test, analyze and store your genetic information for you. Navigenics entered this arena in April’08, with some stellar credentials in terms of team, funding (KPCB, Sequoia among others) and collaborations (Mayo, Partners, Duke, Scripps,...
Read MoreMyMedLab
Consumerism is on the rise in healthcare, and MyMedLab brings that trend to the Lab testing space. With their service users can self-order wellness lab exams online and walk-in to the lab nearest to their zip code. Note that this doesn’t include all possible lab tests, but only the subset that don’t require direct physician order. The price they charge includes collection fee for...
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...
Read MoreQwitter
Healthcare applications of Twitter keep surfacing everyday. Qwitter (not to be confused with another application by the same name that tracks people who stop following you on twitter) is a smoking-cessation tool built by the Florida Department of Health under a 2008 campaign called ‘Tobacco Free Florida’. It works like this- you tweet the number of cigarettes you smoked to @iquit...
Read MoreBodyMedia
Pittsburgh-based BodyMedia makes personal monitoring devices that can help consumers keep track of their physical activity and nutrition. Their products and accessories contain innovative sensors that measure physiological data like heart rate, body temperature, calories burnt, sleep duration, etc . The collected data is then interpreted online to help wearers aim for and monitor a balanced,...
Read MoreTrialX
TrialX.org is an fantastic example of how the web enables linking specific demand with relevant supply. The services matches users (patients, affected individuals) to ongoing clinical trials using their submitted personal health information. What a great startup idea. Service demand can be tapped easily since users are searching the web for highly specific keywords (almost all include the keyword...
Read MoreLifeShirt
LifeShirt is a wearable ‘smart fabric‘ that can be used to remotely monitor multiple vital signs. It is made by VivoMetrics, a Ventura, CA based startup founded in 1999. From what I can gather, LifeShirt captures data around heart rate, respiration, posture, activity level, temperature, limb II ECG and can connect to optional peripheral devices for EEG, skin temperature, blood oxygen...
Read MoreMyFoodMyHealth
There are plenty of medical conditions that necessitate dietary changes (Celiac’s, Diabetes, etc.) and it’s a hassle for the affected individual and/or primary caregiver to manage cooking with restrictions like gluten-free or lactose-free ingredients. MyFoodMyHealth is a startup with the self-stated mission of ‘helping you feel better by eating deliciously’. They provide...
Read MoreFoodFeed
Since my last rant was around twitter, I thought I’ll follow up with another one around same topic. First notable thing about FoodFeed is that its not really useful (their own words, not mine). Its a service that lets you share your eating habits on twitter. They are still in beta so maybe other features are in pipeline, but honestly, FoodFeed seems to be a solution looking for a problem....
Read MoreOrganizedWisdom
OrganizedWisdom describes itself as the first human-powered, doctor-guided search service for health. What the site promises to provide are noise-free, simple but organized search pages that list relevant information on health topics. Its a crowdsourcing model at heart- these pages are essentially hand-crafted search results aggregated by OrganizedWisdom Guides and Physician Reviewers (eligible...
Read MoreSugarStats
SugarStats is a hawaii-based startup inspired by one diabetics’ unfulfilled need to manage his disease data better. Marston Alfred (the site’s creator) found the online diabetes management solutions boring and inaccessible, so he embarked on crating a clean, user-friendly website where diabetes could track their sugar levels and network with other affected individuals. They have...
Read MoreFitBit
Fitbit is a startup trying to leverage the rising wellness trend- they manufacture a small device that you can wear throughout the day to find out how much physical activity you did, how well you slept etc. The tiny device sells for $99 and contains a motion sensor (like the Nintendo Wii) that converts 3D motion data into useful interpretations about your lifestyle. In a 7-day period, whenever...
Read MoredeCODEme
I’m not a fan of direct to consumer genetic testing, but that market is hard to ingore now. deCODEme (excellent name choice, btw) will analyze your genetic information, store it securely and provide you with updates on your genetic profile “as new knowledge becomes available in the field”. There is no doubt that our genes hold valuable information that can help predict and treat...
Read MoreWebDiet
WebDiet is an online weight management tool that can help its users eat smarter and healthier. Its a service that proactively sends location-based, customized meal suggestions directly to mobile devices and helps keep track of what you eat. The ides has potential. GPS-based real-time meal recommendations based on your daily intake requirements and goals can be a simple way to stick to healthy...
Read MoreFamilyhistory.hhs.gov
Dont think this one qualifies to be a 2.0 idea, but it got me thinking about one. On 25th November 2008, the US Surgeon General announced a major upgrade to their Family History Tool. It’s a part of the a national public health campaign, called the Surgeon General’s Family History Initiative, to encourage all American families to learn more about their family health history. The...
Read MoreReliefInsite
Pain is a subjective symptom that is often hard to correctly diagnose and treat on long-term basis. It’s the focus of ReliefInsite- an online web diary for patients with chronic pain. The idea is first to provide a simple platform to record and store pain-related data and provide easy-to-interpret analysis to patients. Secondly, this enables a longitudinal insight for providers into the key...
Read MoreClearSense
Ever since Google and Microsoft jumped into it, the PHR (Personal Health Record) space has become red hot. So while PHRs try to move from hype phase to reality, startups like ClearSense are positioning themselves to leverage all those rich, complex details about your health. ClearSense aims to help you make sense of your health information by providing the data analysis technology called REDBOX...
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