Bits and Pieces of Conclusions

…SO FAR

Trends in Health Care - Recap

I have said it over and over again: the healthcare market is one cow ready to be milked. Market Forces like an aging population, health care economics/politics (more and more laws regard the prevention of disease – preventative management), acute need for highly trained specialists and care takers, consumerism drive, increasing demand for portability, ease of use, targeted use, miniaturization and a confusing regulatory pathway shape it into a profitable yet difficult market.

As far device technology goes, the importance of interoperability cannot be stressed enough while the limitations of batteries drive innovation into specific target areas. Wireless is becoming ubiquitous under these considerations (e.g., Bluetooth Health Device Profile) and low energy consumption is also becoming an ardent issue with research into LPR (Low Power Radio) e.g. Zigbee Healthcare and Bluetooth LE. Flexible platforms systems and auto managed power technologies together with and increased RF traffic challenge the tasks of designers.

A Standard does not Secure Interoperability

Publishing and adopting a standard is by no means enough. Without test documentation, certification services, and a logo license agreement, interoperability is an illusion.

Industry vs. Formal Standardization Bodies

It appears that industry standards are not well regarded by formal standardization bodies. Then it makes all the sense in the world to have industry bodies like Continua Alliance to promulgate industry standards.

“ETSI is non-profit organization whose mission is to produce telecommunications standards for today and for the future. It is an open forum that unites over 800 Members from 53 countries and brings together manufacturers, network operators and service providers, administrations, research bodies and users. ETSI prides itself on being a market-driven organization; its Members, which represent all aspects of the industry, decide its work programme and allocate resources accordingly.”(ETSI 2000c)

However, in the quest for interoperability, European Standards committee tends to neglect the industry based standards. They consider them of lower quality. A standard developed by a formal standardization body has the advantage that it undergoes a certain process (apparently just the right one to give perfect quality) but the cherry on top is that governments may interfere and refer to it within a law. Thus, even though there is no quality guarantee besides word of mouth, the adaptation process is secured to some extent. Selection/adoption of any standard will entail, besides the actual technical details, a bit of drama over who can and will make more profit, irrespective if the environment is official or industry based.

The Law Suit around the Corner with IP

I have talked about the market and profit possibilities in my last post and this aspect of the whole standardization process is undoubtedly very important. The cost of a product is given by the size of silicon used or by the market gap it can fill out. Or at least that is how we usually look at the value for money of a product. It would be all hunky dory if it were so simple. Unfortunately, the danger with new technologies is that Intellectual Property rights can make the price of a product encompassing that particular technology to go way up. This is not even the major problem, because, if these rights are handled up front at the beginning, the cost can increase but will remain fixed. So no surprises! But what if chips start selling by the billions and greedy money makers claim rights in your product, in the technology you use? That’s known in this environment as the patent trolls and boy can they strip you down of a lot of pennies.

Healthcare – a procrastinated market ready to explode

Bluetooth wireless technology already is a de facto standard and one of the measures that brought it here is the regulation for car drivers to have a hands free connection to the mobile phone while driving. I mention this because Bluetooth Low Energy has a similar faith. As I mentioned before, its chances of making it into the real world seemed slim at the beginning, but as soon as it was adopted by the Bluetooth SIG and the focus market shifted to healthcare products, there was only one tiny step left for it to be introduced in a regulation of some sort. And it was; Continua Alliance included it as a standard for certified healthcare products.

The winner takes it all

Wireless is highly employed nowadays in various setups. The boom is partly due to the available technologies developed: Wireless LAN, Classic Bluetooth, IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee, and Wireless HART serve different purposes. I mentioned in my last post the possible interfaces in the healthcare products ecosystem. The PAN devices (sensors and actuators) require a cheap, low energy, fast, reliable wireless connection method. Bluetooth low energy wireless technology, the hallmark feature of the v4.0 Bluetooth Core Specification, solves all problems.

Bluetooth Low Energy – The technology

The main advantage of Bluetooth Low Energy as its name has it is low power consumption. This is due to features like sleep mode, less than 15mA peak and 1uA average power consumption, which in turn were achievable through very fast connection time and very short message lengths. Therefore, BT LE can be up to 10 times more energy efficient than Bluetooth. I keep looking at the big brother when analyzing the performance tests of BT LE not because this newer standard is supposed to replace the older one but because it gives assessment criteria.