Bluegiga Technologies introduces Bluegiga eHealth Access Point for health and medical applications

Feb 17 2010

Bluegiga Technologies announced today the availability of their new Bluegiga eHealth Access Point based on Bluetooth Health Device Profile (HDP). The new technology can be utilised in various health and medical applications. The first large scale remote monitoring systems utilizing Bluegiga eHealth Access Point will be implemented in Japan by Alive-inc who offers "NTT DOCOMO's wellness support" for people enabling the save remote monitoring of health condition of a person.

In the health and medical market the use of wireless technology is growing fast. Trends in personal health, lifestyle and demographics are contributing directly to skyrocketing health care costs and the industry is looking for new ways for improved customer care and cost savings.

Bluetooth HDP technology was created by The Bluetooth SIG and leading health and medical equipment manufacturers to support wireless in-home, in-clinic and in-hospital applications. HDP-enabled end-user devices such as glucose meters, blood pressure monitors, weight scales, ECG-monitors or thermometers transmit data wirelessly to fixed monitoring stations or any other back-end system. Bluetooth technology is ideally suited for wireless data transfer due to its low power consumption, low cost, high security, robustness and interoperability.

"It is expected that by 2025 there will be 1.2 billion people over 60 years in the world and they will all require more from the health care services. Combining this with a growing number of people suffering from obesity as well as the opportunities in personal well-being and sports, health and medical industries can certainly benefit from wireless Bluetooth technology," comments Tom Nordman, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Bluegiga.

Bluegiga eHealth Access Point offers the service providers an open and easy to use platform for building standard Bluetooth or Bluetooth Health Device Profile-based sensor networks and connecting them easily to any database remotely or on-site.

Bluegiga eHealth Access Point includes IEEE 11073-20601 Personal Health Data Exchange Protocol and open Application Programming Interfaces for enabling the integration with various back-end systems. At Mobile World Congress, the Bluetooth HDP-enabled Bluegiga eHealth Access Point will be demonstrated with Google Health at stand 1F62 in Hall 1.

Bluegiga has a number of existing customers already utilising their modules and networking devices for a wide range of healthcare solutions from hospital networks to consumer devices.