Vignet releases Connected Health Services platform infrastructure for mHealth devices and services

Jan 7 2010

Vignet Inc., today announced its Connected Health Services platform infrastructure for mobile health (mHealth) devices and services. The new “person-centered” platform allows users to capture, aggregate, analyze and share data with their mobile devices, leveraging any wired or wireless interface, such as Bluetooth, ZigBee, Bluetooth LE and USB. Vignet will collaborate with IBM, Nonin Medical and A&D to showcase the first mHealth solution, based on the open standards promoted by the Continua Health Alliance, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week. IBM, Vignet and Nonin will jointly demonstrate the solution, which uses IBM’s WebSphere® Sensor Events server software, the Vignet platform, Nonin Onyx® II, Model 9560 Bluetooth^® fingertip pulse oximeter and A&D Model UC-321.

“Our Connected Health Services platform offers users the flexibility to share and access medical information at their convenience with their device of choice”

The Vignet Connected Health Services platform enables the convergence of health information across multiple medical devices, mobile phones, PHRs, EMRs, and eHealth and social media platforms. The information is aggregated in an application server such as WebSphere® Sensor Events in the cloud. From there it can be distributed to a variety of destinations, including EMRs, PHRs, and community and collaboration tools like SMS, Facebook, Twitter, and OpenSocial.

Vignet’s platform works with most mobile phones, PCs and gateways to provide connectivity for both patients and medical professionals without the need for dedicated hardware. The platform also incorporates PAN and WAN standards as specified in the interoperability guidelines developed by the Continua Health Alliance. Vignet has also defined an API for the Connected Health Services platform that third party developers can use to build applications for converged health and mobility.

“Our Connected Health Services platform offers users the flexibility to share and access medical information at their convenience with their device of choice,” said Praduman Jain, Vignet CEO. “At the same time, healthcare professionals can use the platform to gather data to reliably monitor health outcomes. Because it facilitates close communication between patients and care providers, this platform can dramatically improve personal health outcomes by enabling care that is predictive, preventive, personalized, pervasive and participatory.”

“We are pleased to team with Vignet to showcase mobile health management at CES,” said Dan Pelino, general manager, IBM health care and life sciences, “Connected health solutions have great potential to improve patient outcomes and deliver more affordable healthcare solutions. By demonstrating an end-to-end implementation of the Continua standard using any mobile phone as home health gateways, IBM and Vignet are highlighting the next generation for affordable, extensible remote patient monitoring.”

“To date, the use of EMR platforms alone has consistently failed to transform health outcomes in robust and measurable ways,” added Brigitte Piniewski, MD, Chief Medical Officer and Director of BioWellness Research, PeaceHealth Laboratories. “mHealth solutions, such as the Vignet platform, that enable connectivity across multiple user environments tend to yield much better results because they allow users to identify patterns that can most reliably optimize health outcomes. These mHealth platforms will become the backbone of user-generated connected health management.”

Vignet’s platform is the industry’s first implementation of a mobile health network based on the open standards promoted by the Continua Health Alliance. In conjunction with IBM, Nonin Medical and A&D Vignet will showcase a mobile phone equipped with the Vignet platform and an IBM WebSphere Sensor Events running on IBM System x servers implementing Continua guidelines for mHealth devices at CES. The demonstration will take place in the Continua exhibit (North Hall #2817) at the CES Digital Health Summit.

"It is exciting to be a part of the first interoperable mHealth solution built using the Vignet platform and highlight the role Nonin Medical is playing in mHealth," said Jayant Parthasarathy, Ph.D., eHealth Business Manager for Nonin Medical. "Our Bluetooth® fingertip pulse oximeter, the Nonin Onyx® II, Model 9560, is used globally by numerous OEM health management system providers to wirelessly transmit accurate vital signs data between patients and clinicians and Vignet’s platform enables new solutions through the use of mobile phones and PCs.”

"We are excited that the Vignet platform is leveraging our industry-leading wireless products in the mHealth demonstration,” said Teruhisa Moriya, President and CEO of A&D Medical. "Our Bluetooth blood pressure monitors and precision weight scales integrated with the Vignet platform opens up new applications using mobile phones and personal computers."