Aerotel to launch GeoSKeeper in North America

Aerotel Medical Systems will launch the GeoSKeeper personal safety and location system in North America after it received the regulatory clearance for this market.

GeoSKeeper mHealth Device

In Western Europe and Eastern Europe, the GeoSKeeper has been growing in popularity. The mobile based service enables the accurate location of seniors, children and lone workers. By wearing the light-weight device on their wrist, the users’ accurate location can be sent to family and caregivers in real time.

GeoSkeeper offers a new level of safety beyond existing PERS (Personal Emergency Response System) and traditional social alarm systems. The GeoSkeeper has recently received the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Certification, paving the way for further strengthening o Aerotel’s position in the lucrative U.S. market.

Overall, the year 2011 was a great year for Aerotel Medical Systems expending activities all over the globe. Aerotel has expanded its offerings in North America and in Europe and continues to support service providers offering remote monitoring services of health problems for patients suffering from chronic conditions such as congestive heart failure (CHF) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Aerotel technology, which allows home-bound patients to take readings such as their weight, blood pressure and other key metrics, saves money and makes users’ life much easier.

With a client base of more than 50 countries around the globe and more than a decade of rich experience, Aerotel is well positioned to successfully enter new, mature and emerging markets in 2012.

World telehealth market to reach $990 million by 2015

The global telehealth market is expected to continue growing at a command annual growth rate (CAGR) of 43.4 percent to $990 million by 2015, according to a report by medical research company InMedica.

InMedica analysts predict that the market will continue to rise to over $1 billion in 2016 and has the potential to reach $6 billion by 2020. 

The authors said that increasing demand for healthcare, associated with ever increasing disease prevalence and an ageing population creates a significant challenge for the delivery of care. The number of people with chronic condition is forecast to increase dramatically by 10%-20% over the next ten years. Moreover, the aging demographic will lead to a significant increase in disease co-morbidities in the population that is over-65. 

Telehealth, also known as Telemedicine, means using information and communications technologies for the delivery of healthcare services. Telehealth reduces the unnecessary hospitalizations and reduces waiting lists for medical treatment with a significant saving factor on economic resources. This technology gives patients the ability to monitor the specific parameters of their conditions and then have the information sent directly to their physicians for management of their disease process via telephone, cellular or the Internet.

Telehealth has become a rapidly evolving field, thanks to recent technological breakthroughs, such as miniaturized sensors and advancements in telecommunications means that allow an almost permanent contact in case of need. Telehealth can offer cost-effective remote monitoring solutions that can seamlessly operate from anywhere at anytime. 

The report illustrates that home-monitoring is becoming increasingly relevant in the treatment of chronic diseases. Home-use medical devices in Teleheatlh services, such as blood glucose meters, pulse oximeters, weight scales and peak flow meters are being deployed to monitor four main diseases – congestive heart failure (CHF), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), diabetes and hypertension.

"The main driving force behind the sharp growth of the Telehealth market are the new solutions for monitoring chronic diseases answering the growing need for such solutions that will hold down healthcare costs," said Ofer Atzmon, Vice President for Business Development and Marketing at Aerotel Medical Systems. "From our experience the strongest demand is for hypertension (monitoring of blood pressure) solutions, followed by diabetes (monitoring of glucose and blood pressure), CHF (monitoring of blood pressure and weight) and COPD (monitoring of SpO2 and spirometry values)."

“Many public healthcare systems now have targets to reduce both the number of hospital visits and the length of stay in hospital,” said Diane Wilkinson, Research Manager at InMedica. “This has led to a growing trend for healthcare to be managed outside the traditional hospital environment, and as a result, there is a growing trend for patients to be monitored in their home environment using telehealth technologies once their treatment is complete.”

She noted that the US is the most established market for telehealth by far. So for example, the Veteran’s Health Administration’s extensive home Telehealth service aims to provide some 92,000 patients with Telehealth services by next year. Wilkinson added that there has also been some large-scale trial activity in Europe, mainly in the UK.

Wall Street Journal: eHealth solutions save money and improve heart patient's quality of life

Remote monitoring of health problems for congestive heart failure (CHF) patients saves money and makes users life much easier, according to an article published in The Wall Street Journal.

The article stated that technology – which allows heart patients take readings like their weight, blood pressure and other key metrics using wireless and other technologies - is gaining traction.

The paper gave the example of Carolyn Brown, a 63-year-old retired teacher's aide from Bronx, N.Y., who started using a new monitoring system after she suffered two heart attacks.

The program puts a scale, blood-pressure cuff and glucose monitor into patients' homes and then collects the data daily via wireless or landline. The data is transmitted to a case manager or medical care giver allowing them to catch, and address, warning signs before the patient lands in the emergency room with shortness of breath or a heart attack. 

The featured equipment includes Aerotel's Connect-Cell, which is a Cellular-Based Homecare Data Hub enabling users to easily transmit vital signs data via the cellular network (GPRS) to a central monitoring center.

The New York City Health and Hospitals Corp., says it pays about $6,300 for a Medicaid heart patient's typical hospital stay while the cost for the remote monitoring system is only $626.

"It is more important than ever for health plans and patients to combat medical costs, growing at a clip of between 6% and 9% a year, according to various estimates," the Wall Street Journal said. "Heart failure is a leading cause of hospital readmissions, with about 25% of patients returning to the hospital within 30 days. It's also one of the biggest single claims expenses at insurance companies. Aetna estimates that 40% of readmissions are avoidable".

The paper added that, a new study of 1,450 patients that published by Circulation, the journal of the American Heart Association, showed that implantable defibrillators that wirelessly transmit data on the patient's heart function reduced in-hospital evaluations by 45%. Suspected cardiac events were evaluated in less than two days compared with 36 days.