The Hindu Business Line : Wireless medical monitoring for patients

Heartline Telemedical Services, a company that offers tele-health check ups and tele-diagnostics with advice, has tied up with Lifeline Multi-Speciality Hospitals to provide wireless medical monitoring for patients, according to Dr Selva Annamalai, Managing Director, Heartline.

He said that the monitoring and check-ups could be done through equipment provided by Cardguard, an Israel-based company that provides telemedicine solutions globally. The technology allows patients to be monitored through devices such as Pocket PC, Java, Bluetooth, GPRS and WiFi.

Some of the medical tests that can be conducted are ECG, blood pressure, pulse, glucose and saturation. The data would be transferred from the remote location to Lifeline, which has dedicated a 30-member team to monitor this data, and the diagnosis would take place accordingly.

Mr J.S. Rajkumar, Chairman, Lifeline Group, said that the technology is available in two packages — one for corporates, which would include a complete check-up including ECG, BP, blood glucose, oximetry and spinometry, and a single user package, which would include basic heart and blood checkups.

He said the corporate package is not for sale — rather the company would charge per check-up at a cost of Rs 500, about one-third of a normal medical check-up. The other advantage is that the process takes about five minutes, he said, as opposed to over two hours in a normal hospital environment. Corporates have already shown interest, and the company expects to conduct between 1 lakh and 2 lakh check-ups in the first year of operations — about 700 to 800 a day.

The single-user package, meant for one family to use, is for sale between Rs 25,000 and Rs 30,000, and an additional monitoring monthly charge of Rs 700. The services include instant transfer of the medical data and consultation from the doctors at Lifeline.