According to a report on eweek, Sprint has formed a partnership with remote-health-management provider BL Healthcare to power 3G connectivity for its telemedicine platform.
The collaboration aims to bring a new standard for health care management with improved quality and lower costs, according to Michael Mathur, president and CEO of BL Healthcare.
Using BL Healthcare telemedicine services, which are FDA approved and HIPAA compliant, patients can send vital medical data remotely to doctors while at work, at home, in a hospital or assisted living facility—and even in pharmacies or retail stores.
Over Sprint’s network, patients can send readings on blood pressure, heart rate and breathing, Tim Donahue, Sprint’s vice president of industry solutions, said that Doctors can monitor readings for signs of chronic conditions such as heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes.
Data can be collected from medical devices immediately or over a period of time, like a week, noted Gary Rurup, strategic opportunity manager for Sprint’s Emerging Solutions group.
Use of BL Healthcare’s telemedicine device is simple. It involves pushing one button on the touch screen, and test results are then sent over Sprint’s 3G network to a physician.
“If medicine needs to be dispensed, a message can be sent back to the patient on that same video screen,” Rurup said.
Sprint, BL Healthcare and Lancaster General Health, a health care system in Lancaster, Pa., will showcase a 4G remote-monitoring kiosk at the HIMSS11 health care IT conference in Orlando, Fla., from Feb. 20-24.
“Wireless technologies, 3G and 4G in particular, have really established telemedicine systems as the future of health care,” William Dunstan, vice president of home health services with Lancaster General Health, said in a statement.
BL Healthcare is a partner in Sprint’s M2M (Machine to Machine) Collaboration Center. Launched in October, the Collaboration Center allows Sprint to test mobile phones and wireless service with other company’s electronic devices, according to Sprint.
By Pooja. Thakkar
Healthcare Digital