Continua Health Alliance demonstrates seamless data sharing
The Continua Health Alliance, a non-profit coalition with more than 170 healthcare and technology industry members worldwide, demonstrated how seamlessly sharing data of Continua pre-certified products and solutions - across a variety of environments - can help consumers, professionals and businesses.
The demonstration was held in October at the Partners Centre for Connected Health 5th Annual Connected Health Symposium in Boston, Mass., USA. ‘Continua member companies are working on real solutions that will empower consumers and healthcare professionals to access and share information quickly and easily through connected products and solutions,’ explained Dave Whitlinger, Continua Health Alliance President. ‘Together, we can create a new marketplace, improve health and quality of life and advance personal telehealth worldwide.’
For the demonstration, devices and software solutions that support Continua’s upcoming Version One guidelines and share a common interface were provided by A&D Medical, Cambridge Consultants, Cypak, FitLinxx, Google Health, IBM, Intel, National Health Service (NHS), Nonin Medical, Oracle, Partners, Philips, Roche Diagnostics, and University Health Network.
With the devices and solutions shown in home and professional settings, the audience could see the benefits of real-time information sharing, including improved data for diagnostics and treatment, time and cost
savings, and an improved patient
experience. Continua has also linked with Dossia, a non-profit consortium focused on empowering consumers with personally-controlled health records, and Google Inc., one of the world’s leading search and information management companies. ‘Consumers are ready to adopt healthcare technology, such as personally-controlled health records and home health monitoring devices,’ said Colin Evans, President and CEO of Dossia. At Google Health, its Product Manager Jerry Lin, added: ‘Google ardently supports the concepts of interoperability, data portability, and open standards, so it was a natural fit for us to join the Continua Alliance. Our work with Continua will help us continue to develop integration with various home monitoring devices to ensure that data can be uploaded from these devices and securely stored in Google Health.’
Continua has also appointed healthcare veteran Charles Parker as its new Executive Director.
Promoter and Originating Promoter members of Continua include: A&D Medical, ActiveHealth Management, Aetna, Ascension Health, Bayer Healthcare, CA, Centre for Connected Health, Cisco, Clinic Barcelona, European Centre for Connected Health, GE Healthcare, Homedics, IBM, iMetrikus, Intel Corporation, Kaiser Permanente, LifeSync, Medtronic, NHS, Nokia, Nonin Medical, Novartis, Omron, Panasonic, Philips, Polar, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Qualcomm, Roche, Samsung, Sharp, Siemens, Sprint, St. Jude Medical, Texas Instruments, Tunstall, Viterion, and Welch Allyn.
Continua info: www.continuaalliance.org
21.11.2008
