Is an iPhone-type device the answer?

Sometimes, when I look at the range of functions my workaday iPhone offers, I'm simply amazed. Of late, the extent to which iPhone applications can interact with my world, including responding to my touch and the sound of my voice, reading bar codes in retail settings, providing directions and triggering an alarm when I pass my grocery store, has had me thinking about its role in remote care.

Has mobile technology (in the guise of the iPhone or similar technologies) finally come to the point where it's easy to use, flexible, capable of supporting multiple technologies and robust enough that it can serve as a platform for remote medicine?

I ask this because despite their power and sophistication, previous generations of smart phones haven't necessarily been up to the job of serving as an intermediary between patients and doctors. Patients have complained of hiccups in the process, errors in the phone's software, slow data transmission, inconvenient methods for entering data and more.

Now, however, that we have devices with the iPhone's power and elegance, perhaps we're finally reaching the point where familiar consumer technology can be adapted effectively to serve medical purposes. Not only can this generation of 3G smartphones collect data, it can deliver data via broadband networks, and crunch it on resident databases. For all I know, it'd be possible and practical to connect a glucometer, pulse oximeter, CPAP machine or spirometer directly to an advanced smart phone. If not, my bet is it soon will be.

If I'm right about this--and I admit that as an analyst rather than techie, I'm just guessing--we're on the verge of a shift that will push telemedicine right into the mainstream. After all, give IT staffers, doctors, hospitals and patients a familiar device to use--rather than a $20K box that IT folks aren't prepared to support--and you win people over quickly. Perhaps 2009 will be the year it all happens. -Anne

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