Bits and Pieces of Conclusions

…SO FAR

Promising Forecasts & False Suppositions

The forecasts in the ehealth medium keep pouring down and they put forward very promising scenarios. Deloitte Center for Health Solutions' survey found that 50% of consumers want a "personal monitoring device" to alert and guide them to improve their state of health or treat an already existing condition. A research done by PricewaterhouseCoopers places the market of mobile health applications at $7.7 billion with 40% of U.S. adults "willing to pay". In 2009, McKinsey's survey on mobile health estimated the market at $50 billion to $60 billion worldwide and $20 billion in the U.S. Parks Associates projects the wireless home health monitoring market will reach $4.4 billion in 2013.  Juniper Research places the market of remote patient monitoring via mobile network at $2 billion by 2014.

It cannot be denied that some of these reports are commissioned by various players looking to boost one aspect of the market or another. But what is there behind these numbers?

Clash of the Titans?

Continua Alliance’s main goal is to achieve certified interoperability. For an industry organization, it faces a lot obstruction from official standardization bodies. On top of that, as Gianluca mentioned here, the FDA poses some problems and delays the entire market of healthcare. Continua is playing on an international market and is therefore affected by measures taken in the US. What is happening on the European continent? A serious contender boosted by the European bodies has appeared promoting the same goals as the international industry based organization, Continua Alliance.

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.

Design Guidelines – The process

In 2009 the Version One Design Guidelines was published. These guidelines focus exclusively on the interoperability features of devices and not on particular functionalities. The method of coming up with these results was based on analyzing the interoperability requirements from different use cases submitted by the members of the alliance. The guidelines on their own, however, revolve around already existing industry standards. The process kicks off by receiving use cases from member companies on interoperability issues regarding one of the three target areas: Living Independently, Disease Management, Health & Wellness. Based on all use cases, a generalized list of problems is formulated, which in turn is used to prioritize capabilities, interfaces and requirements. The next step is to search the industry and the standard bodies for standards which answer questions related to the capabilities and requirements. Aspects like how well the standards address the capabilities in under discussion, is the standard international and can if not can it be made so, what is the relation between the standard under scrutiny and other standards in the same area, what is the associated intellectual property claims, what are the specification access and control mechanisms, what is the level of adoption and maturity, are analyzed. All these issues narrow down the possible standards available to meet the initial requirements. The final decision is taken according to a performance comparison between candidates with respect to the requirements.

The buzz about E-Health

The aging population of the West has opened a new booming profitable market: E-health. Nevertheless, it’s not only about the elderly, there are chronic diseases (diabetes, heart diseases, etc.), where 24/7 monitoring is of utmost importance, and also staying fit equipment for those striving to improve their figure. However, e-health has proven to be an ongoing crusade for the healthcare policymakers. While attempts are being made to achieve an integrated European e-health market, since the technology is available so as to secure state-of-the-art user friendly products, the actual results are far from ideal – a few independent solutions introduced by remote companies.