Healthcare experts speaking at the Continua Summit shared the real-world results already being achieved by connected health solutions. Dr. Adam Darkins, Chief Consultant for Care Coordination at the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA), reported on the results of the VA’s national home telehealth program to coordinate the care of veteran patients with chronic conditions. The benefits have been a 25 percent reduction in the number of bed days of care, 19 percent reduction in numbers of hospital admissions, and mean satisfaction score rating of 86 percent after enrollment into the program. The cost of the program is $1,600 per patient per year, substantially less than other programs and assisted living facilities.

"We need to think about home telehealth as the preferred model of care in the future, when it is appropriate to do so," Dr. Darkins said. "Standards will be essential in developing new business models of how we deliver care."

"Continua is front and center in the home monitoring area," declared Dr. John Halamka, Chair of the US Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP) and Chief Information Officer of Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, in his keynote presentation. "Standardization and open sourcing will help drive down costs for these solutions."

Connected Health Poised for Growth
More connected personal health devices are coming to the market as Continua design guidelines gain traction, according to Harry Wang, Director of Health & Mobile Product Research at Parks Associates. "Continua is doing a great job bringing together the stakeholders in this space and developing this market from emerging to mainstream," Wang said.

The market analyst advised the healthcare providers, device manufacturers and technology companies in the audience to leverage connected healthcare solutions as a key enabler of new care models. "Device and service connectivity is the model for future home care applications, and mobile networks will link a growing number of monitoring products to healthcare providers," he declared. "Wireless technologies can benefit home care in areas such as chronic care management, medical diagnostic device monitoring, wellness and fitness applications, medication management, and senior independent living solutions."

The U.S. market for wireless home-based healthcare applications and services will grow at a five-year cumulative annual growth rate of more than 80 percent and become a $4.4 billion industry by 2013, according to a recent Parks Associates report entitled Wireless Healthcare: Analysis & Forecasts.

More Continua Certified™ Products Coming to Market
Cypak is the latest company to achieve Continua certification with the CPX 186 Converter designed to connect legacy devices to the Continua ecosystem. "Cypak's CPX186 Continua Converter cable has been integrated with an A&D Medical Precision Weight Scale and an A&D Medical Blood Pressure Monitor to provide two new USB Continua Certified products to the ecosystem of devices," said Chuck Parker, Executive Director of Continua Health Alliance. "This converter cable supports already in-place devices, ensuring that we can enable existing equipment already in the field."

Several connected health devices have recently completed rigorous testing to qualify for Continua certification, signifying compliance with Continua Design Guidelines and the ability to work with other specified Continua Certified™ solutions. By extending these solutions into the home, Continua member companies are driving new models in healthcare, enabling truly personalized health and wellness management that empowers individuals and fosters independence, while improving healthcare outcomes and reducing costs.

Continua Health Alliance is addressing several aspects of the healthcare market with its Continua Certified program.

• For Providers: In addition to empowering individuals to maintain greater responsibility for their health, this also enables more informed treatment decisions by the care team for their patients.
• For Payers: These personal connected health devices enable convenient data sharing for consistent monitoring of individuals' health and care status.
• For Consumers: Simple, easy to configure devices that enable connections with the care team
• For Government Agencies: Straightforward access to solutions that limit integration issues and follow open standards.

Product Introductions Indicate Market Momentum
Product demonstrations at the Continua Summit included two recently introduced connected health solutions. Eurotech announced its Everyware(TM) Medical Gateway and demonstrated the device's new diabetes care management solution in partnership with IBM, A&D Medical, and MDclick. In addition, MindTree demonstrated its new Bluetooth enabled health device solution which includes the Bluetooth 2.1+EDR stack and Health Device Profile (HDP) on a Google Android G1 mobile platform.

Eurotech's interactive demonstration showcased an end-to-end solution using Eurotech's Everyware Medical Gateway as the device manager collecting data from in-home devices such as A&D Medical's Precision Weight Scale and Blood Pressure Monitor. This data was then transmitted to the MDclick health record application via IBM WebSphere Sensor Events.

About Continua
Continua Health Alliance is a non-profit, open industry coalition of the finest health care and technology companies joining together in collaboration to improve the quality of personal health care. With more than 220 member companies around the world, Continua is dedicated to establishing a system of interoperable personal health solutions with the knowledge that extending those solutions into the home fosters independence, empowers individuals and provides the opportunity for truly personalized health and wellness management.