Smartphones Could Become Mobile Nurses and Labs in the Future
by Frank Jossi
Smartphones have begun to live up to their name in the healthcare arena. Their processing power and ability to host complex software are being used for collecting, storing, and transmitting data from personal health devices, and they may someday serve as digital checkbooks for paying pharmacies and clinics.
Telemedicine and bill payment are going wireless as a new array of products emerges employing near-field communication (NFC) in smartphones. Tech companies are rolling out patches and devices with passive or active radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags that would allow consumers to measure aspects of their health and pay for health-related services with a swipe of their smartphones.
The technology works a bit like-and in conjunction with-Bluetooth, while removing the setup hassles commonly associated with that technology. Operating on a high-frequency wavelength, NFC-enabled phones can allow users to read data off tiny radio-equipped sensors or enable consumers to pay for products and services by placing their smartphones over readers, a process called "tap and go." NFC can access all kinds of digital content, from sharing business cards to paying for transit rides.
Operating on a high-frequency wavelength, NFC-enabled phones can read data off tiny radio-equipped sensors or enable consumers to pay for products and services by placing their smartphones over readers, a process called "tap and go."
NFC-enabled phones can incorporate smart card functions while exchanging data in what's called a "contactless" environment. Downloads are quick because the data can be transferred through Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or wirelessly from the phone automatically or collected for transmission at a later time.
In fact, NFC's proponents describe its potential as that of a digital wallet able to incorporate credit and smart cards into smartphones. Loyalty, healthcare, and membership cards, too, might find a home in a phone rather than a wallet. The thick wallet of the past may become a thin handset with greater security features than leather.
Ramping Up Demand
What is driving NFC's spread and acceptance is smartphone manufacturers and operating system designers placing it into products-and that's finally happened. Several smartphones using Google's Android operating system have NFC capabilities and Research in Motion just announced in May that Blackberry Bold models will have it, too. Apple, however, remains for now on the sidelines and has chosen not to incorporate it into the iPhone 5 due to what it called "a lack of industry standards" involving payment made through NFC. iPhone 6, of course, could be a different story.
AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless have announced they are working on a payment system called Isis that will be based on NFC. And rumors abound that Apple is working on incorporating NFC into the next iPhone release. Of course, NFC isn't just about phones-Sony and other manufacturers are experimenting with NFC in laptops and cameras, as well as handsets.
The thick wallet of the past may become a thin handset with greater security features than leather.
"There have been and there are going to be big announcements about NFC," says Damien Balsan, head of NFC business development for Nokia industry collaboration markets. "The year 2011 is shaping up to be a big one in this area."
Adding to the interest has been the release of technology standards by the NFC Forum, the leading industry group, after many years of research and debate.
"After we released the standards last year, many chip suppliers began making chips based on handset manufacturers incorporating those chips into the phones," says Koichi Tagawa, NFC Forum chair and general manager of global standards and industry relations department at Sony Corporation.
The NFC Forum arrived at 15 specifications for NFC during the past four years and created a certification program. For health care, in particular, the industry's standardization could jump-start innovation. The forum is working closely with Continua Health Alliance, a consortium of healthcare and technology companies aiming to improve the care delivery system.
"Up until this year, many of these advances involving NFC were only theoretically possible, but now they're happening," Tagawa says.
Finally, Juniper Research chose mobile payments as one of the hot mobile trends for 2011, a prediction confirmed by an iSuppli report suggesting sales of mobile phones with NFC built in will reach 220.1 million in the next three years. Once they become a standard feature, the industry should blossom.
NFC for Monitoring
NFC's healthcare applications will be in two primary areas: remote monitoring and billing. A leader in remote monitoring is GENTAG, which has developed a line of disposable sensors requiring no battery that collect data that can be transmitted to an NFC handset.
"What we've done is minimize the cost of the device [the sensors] and maximized the processing power of the phone," says John R. Peeters, PhD, GENTAG chief executive officer and founder.
RFID-embedded products from GENTAG include wireless thermometers and skin patches to detect fevers, monitor glucose levels, the heart, and ultraviolet rays. Sensors can test food for peanuts or pathogens, reporting results to a handset. Immunoassay tests requiring urine samples have been developed by GENTAG to test for biomarkers that indicate prostate cancer-an attractive approach since many men dislike going to the doctor. Having the ability to perform these tests in the privacy of a home could give men the impetus to seek care, or breathe easy, depending on the test results.
GENTAG is working with developers on patch tests for pregnancy, for predicting ovulation to assist women who want to conceive or avoid pregnancy, and for measuring amniotic fluid to indicate when a birth will occur and when it's likely time to go hospital or call a midwife.
"Women's health care will be huge, and there's a very low cost of entry into the market," says Peeters.
NFC could eventually reduce healthcare costs as consumers self-administer tests rather than having them performed by physicians or home healthcare workers.
Boston Life Labs Telehealth has taken a different tack in employing NFC. The company designed a telehealth "hub" to capture data from the wireless products it sells-an ear thermometer, body scale, and blood pressure meter. The data can be transferred to the home hub, or a patient can use his or her handset to capture data for transmission to a personal healthcare record system created by Boston Life Labs.
More Data, Lower Costs?
Olivier De La Bastille, chief technical officer for Boston Life Labs, believes NFC could eventually reduce healthcare costs as consumers self-administer tests rather than having them performed by physicians or home healthcare workers. The result could be healthier patients providing a richer set of data than ever before at a more manageable cost.
"NFC is one tool among many in the telehealth market that can potentially reduce healthcare costs," Basille says.
Finally, there are promising monitoring projects throughout the world. The United Kingdom's National Health Service is using NFC tags for home care patients. Nurses can use NFC-enabled phones to look at medical records, capture data from tags in patients' homes, input health information, and record time spent with patients. Patients can use their own mobile phones to arrange medical visits or serve as emergency alarms-touch the handset to a tag and a call is placed to an emergency number.
Patients can use their own mobile phones as emergency alarms-touch the handset to a tag and a call is placed to an emergency number.
Another home healthcare approach has been in use for three years in the Netherlands. Nedap NV Healthcare won an NFC Forum award in 2007 for iO TouchPro, which collects and transmits data from home care workers using NFC-enabled Nokia phones. Home care workers touch the iO TouchPro phone to a patient smart card to register the arrival time and receive patient care information from a software solution created by Nedap. After offering care, workers hold their phones to patient cards again, automatically reporting all treatment actions. In its NFC Forum submission, the company says it saves time and money by eliminating data entry and paperwork for more than 6,000 home care providers.
Watch Where You Wave that Phone!
Most of the action around NFC revolves around billing. The NFC Forum declares NFC could eventually become a $36 billion market, much of it by replacing moving credit card payment information into mobile handsets to pay for everything from transit rides to hotel bills to restaurant tabs.
Contactless Data Inc. believes consumers "could be waving a phone to pay in merchant stores, but it could be good at a physician's office, too," says Ismaila Wane, CEO. Wane's company is building an open system where a patient could wave a phone over a reader to register at the front desk, where an attendant and physician could pull up the electronic health record and verify eligibility-and patients could avoid the drudgery of repeat paperwork.
The patient's phone could eventually pay for some services at the doctor's office and for prescriptions at the drug store.
"When you wave that phone, it allows [the clinic] to begin processing a claim," Wane says.
Contactless Data has integrated Ugicare with Dossia, a personally controlled health record from Indivo. Dossia's consortium includes Walmart, AT&T, BP America, Intel, and others.
By all accounts, NFC is in the early stages of development for healthcare applications. It's not hard to imagine how all data collected will better inform physicians of a patient's wellness and have additional advantages, among them populating electronic patient health records. Health care is relying more on patients' managing their own care, and NFC allows one of the most ubiquitous features of modern life, the mobile phone, to play an important role in that trend.
