Mobile Health 360^®

There is a lot of talk these days about home monitoring and devices that track health measurements remotely, and how they tie into the movement of mobile health. There are some big players in the space making some amazing products. Recently, we caught up with Olufemi Omojola, founder and CEO of IdeaSynthesis, a company dedicated to creating its own mobile and remote monitoring devices to improve personal health management. The smaller players in this emerging industry have tremendous opportunity and, being one ourselves, we are proud to highlight them any chance we get.

1. When did you launch Idea Synthesis?

IdeaSynthesis has been around since 2006: initially we were focused on consulting in a number of areas around RFID and supply chain management. We focused over the last year on providing modern health solutions for the emerging personal and mobile health fields, with a focus on vital sign measurement and personal health management at http://simpleeye.com.

2. What was the impetus to do so?

Moving fully into the health solution space was really motivated when we realized that there was a large gap between the available vital sign measurement technology and the tools that individuals and institutions have to use this technology. With recent advances in smart phones and tablets there is a real opportunity to improve the human workflow around personal health monitoring: FDA approved, easy to use vital sign monitoring devices are now available at affordable price points and what was really lacking were the tools and applications to take these measurements and make them widely available in a usable fashion for individuals and institutions.

3. When did you first hear about mobile/home health?

Initially over 5 years ago: in a previous life we were involved in a number of projects with applications in the telemedicine space. Limitations in the available technology at the time made these projects difficult to really push forward, but recent advances in the vital sign measurement device space have really made this a much more interesting and dynamic space.

4. How do you think it fits into the future of health care?

We think it’s huge: there’s growing awareness of the importance of prevention on a personal level, as well as for society in general; this was one of the emphases of the recent heath care reform debate. Another was the idea of evidence-based medicine; measuring things regularly, tracking them and incorporating the measurements into decision-making. Other than for a number of chronic health conditions (such as diabetes or weight) there is little regular vital sign measurement done out side of visits to doctors and hospitals. Mobile health tools enable doctors, patients and other care providers to easily and accurately measure and monitor the same indicators used for diagnostic purposes. This data can then be integrated into an individual’s health management. All together, this has the potential to dramatically improve the quality of health care during the intervals between doctor, hospital or other health care provider visits.

5. Ideally, what do you envision as the intersection of mobile health and current delivery?

We’re currently focused on patient vital sign measurement: we see the integration of measurements sourced by the patient into their primary care and related care (physical therapy, nutritional guidance, elder care) as the first major intersection. We think the ability to enhance patients’ personal health management using actionable information derived from continuous, at-home measurements and provide health care providers information about progress with health management programs can potentially reduce costs of doctor visits and hospital admissions and improve general quality of life for patients, as well as empowering them with more control over their health on a day-to-day basis.

6. What obstacles do you see to the adoption of mobile health?

Ease of use we think is the first: the workflow around setting up and regularly using some of the available devices is still too complex. Security is we think the next big one: with an increase in available information distributed in multiple places many questions will need to be answered about how safe and secure that information is and who is responsible for securing it. The biggest obstacle will however be integration into existing practice: with a patient collecting their vital signs at home how will that information be used by their physicians and other existing health care providers (such as physical therapists or nutritionists)? We think once these questions are answered widespread adoption will follow.

7. There are a number of medical apps out there, what do you say to those who think the market will be too cluttered to be effective?

At this time, more choice is to be applauded! There are an increasing number of options out there for patients, but we think that the existing mechanisms for solution discovery (websites such as http://www.mhealth360.com/ and http://mobihealthnews.com/ and the Android Market and iPhone App Store health categories) are not bad right now and along with newly emerging channels will get better at surfacing the best of the best in mobile health solutions for both doctors and patients. Ultimately, despite certain common patterns or techniques in personal health, every individual will go about their personal health management in a unique way and we fully believe the market will support a number of different solutions.

8. Why are you focused currently on the Android platform?

Our current focus on the Android platform is based largely on the following factors: 1.There are a lot of Android devices, and adoption is growing. 2. Standardized application programming interfaces: Android is both developer and user friendly. This means we can get solutions out there, and test them with users relatively quickly and get their feedback so we can make tools that are truly useful for them. We’re actually in the process of surveying our early users now, to learn more about how they are using the tools, and what features would be more useful for them. We are interested in everyone’s opinions: please help us out by filling out the surveys at http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/448272/SimpleEye-Blood-Pressure-App-Survey, http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/448264/SimpleEye-Blood-Glucose-App-Survey and http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/448231/SimpleEye-Weight-Scale-App-Survey. 3. Easy distribution: the Android Market is available on most Android phones, which makes getting the applications to end users really easy. 4. Availability of supported vital sign measurement devices: a large number of vital sign measurement devices with integrated communication capability are equipped with Bluetooth communication links and have published communication interfaces (although some require NDAs with the manufacturers). Strong support for Bluetooth communication in recent Android releases makes these attractive targets for applications. It should be noted that platforms such as Apple’s iOS (available on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch) currently do not provide convenient access to the Bluetooth communication capabilities for third party software, so despite the attractiveness of iOS as a platform implementations on iOS are currently not possible on standard, unmodified devices.

9. What medical apps do you suggest as the best right now, for patients and for physicians?

For physicians, Epocrates is probably one of the best on the Android platform: provides a breadth of general information in a supremely portable package. For patients, obviously we like our Bluetooth Weight Scale application: with support for Bluetooth body composition scales a patient can efficiently track their weight and body composition over time with no potential user error. We also like Instant Heart Rate, which measures your pulse using the camera on Android phones, and can be fairly accurate.

10. What would you like to see in future apps?

Automated device pairing for Bluetooth measurement devices: making it even easier to buy a new measurement device and have it ready to communicate with your smart phone or computer without the current complex pairing procedures in use. Better guidance: currently most applications (ours included) are largely focused on data collection, rather than providing actionable information to the patient on how to use the collected data to improve their health. We are working on a number of things in this space and hope to have some interesting options available in the near future.

11. What device(s) do you believe will lead this market?

Honestly, it is too early to pick winners and losers here. We think that devices that are easy to use as well as providing reasonable/easy to develop for communication capabilities will gain the most traction. We really like the Nonin Onyx II 9560 BT Bluetooth pulse oximeter: it is a very capable device, supports automatic data collection by a suitably equipped smart phone/tablet/computer, and has a communication protocol that makes it reasonable to talk to the device. It is also very clearly a best-of-breed device: Nonin makes very good pulse oximeters for clinical environments and that knowledge and expertise has translated over to their FDA-approved Bluetooth pulse oximeter. There has been a recent trend in device manufacturers attempting to provide single source supplies of all vital sign measurement devices and require adopters to buy all devices and communication solutions from them. They have had limited success so far and we do not believe these strategies will be successful: patients and providers want to be able to obtain solutions from the best available manufacturers, and we think that mix-and-match solutions that integrate devices from many manufacturers will come to dominate the market.

12. Tell me more about your specific devices, how do they work, what are they intended to do?

Currently we’ve focused on the vital sign measurement collection workflow, and integration of those vital signs with personal health records. We currently support (in our applications available for purchase right now in the Android Market) spot check measurements of blood oxygen, blood glucose, blood pressure, pulse, weight and temperature. Devices we support include the Nonin Onyx II 9560 BT Bluetooth pulse oximeter, and the Tanita BC590BT body composition weight scale (which also provides body fat percentage and muscle/bone mass measurements). A full list of the devices we support are at http://simpleeye.com/devices/. In all cases, our applications provide: – Local storage of the measurement data – Charting of the results – Sharing of specific measurements or all measurements via email, SMS or other supported techniques using the Android platform’s integrated sharing support – Import/export to support moving your data from one Android device to another when you upgrade your Android device – Synchronization (through our Google Health Sync application) of all your measurements with Google Health. For a number of the devices we also provide automatic data collection: once the application is properly setup we automatically detect when the measurement device is turned on, connect to it and retrieve the measurements as soon as they are available without the patient needing to manually start any software or even touch their Android device. The focus in our existing applications is on measurement collection workflow: making it as easy as possible to start collecting your measurements and seeing long-term trends, and providing a uniform interface across all the applications and devices.

13. What about adoption, where are we in the cycle?

Still very early in the cycle. Continuous personal vital sign measurement is currently really only integrated into the personal health management process for a few diseases/conditions: blood sugar for diabetes, and (very recently) weight for congestive heart failure. There are emerging trends around blood pressure and blood oxygen for other chronic conditions, but adoption will be slow until these are well understood and actionable guidance can be provided based on the measurement data.

14. Looking forward, do you think home and mobile health are the future of health care?

We do. It is critical both for quality of life as well as to combat the rising price of health care and cost of bad health that personal health care extends beyond just doctor visits to include more personal participation by patients, and that process should be driven not only by qualitative improvements in lifestyle but also by quantitative measurements that can provide feedback to patients, health care providers and payers and improve outcomes for all participants in the process.