Qualcomm has announced a new subsidiary, Qualcomm Life, to focus on remote health management and a new cloud platform called 2net for transferring biometric data.
Qualcomm has announced it
will form a new subsidiary, called Qualcomm
Life, to manage the development of the company's mobile health platforms.
The new company, formerly
known as Qualcomm Wireless Health, will focus on connecting mobile devices
through machine-to-machine (M2M) technology. M2M connects remote-monitoring
devices through wireless connections.
Qualcomm announced the new
subsidiary at the mHealth Summit in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 5.
"Qualcomm Life was founded,
in part, to assist medical-device manufacturers who approached Qualcomm for
help when their own wireless connectivity attempts became untenable due to
technology selection errors, unscalable deployment models and prohibitively
high operational support costs," Rick Valencia, vice president and general
manager of Qualcomm Life, said in a statement.
In addition to the new
subsidiary, Qualcomm introduced 2net, a cloud platform that transmits biometric
data from patients to physicians and caregivers.
The 2net platform will also
allow doctors and patients to transfer, store, convert and display data
generated by various medical devices. Qualcomm is demonstrating 2net at the
mHealth Summit.
"Our services,
including integration on the 2net platform, remove the burden for medical-device
manufacturers of a large technical development effort, providing integration
with mobile carriers and solving the operational complexities of supporting
wireless medical device data in the field," Valencia said.
Users can access the 2net
platform through the 2net hub. The hub works with 2G; 3G; Bluetooth; Bluetooth
Low Energy; WiFi; and ANT+, a local-area radio protocol.
The U.S. Food and Drug
Administration has listed 2net as an approved Medical Device Data System
(MDDS) that supports regulatory requirements such as the ISO 13485
quality-management standard.
The 2net platform and hub
will help doctors and patients monitor chronic diseases, according to Don
Jones, vice president of global strategy and market development for Qualcomm
Life.
"We believe the 2net
platform and hub's promotion of medical-device connectivity will enable a sea
change in health care, where we observe stressed medical systems burdened by a
mounting prevalence of chronic disease," Jones said in a statement.
"Already, several members of the 2net ecosystem are able to provide
remote-monitoring functionality for chronic disease management, enhancing the
quality of care for their patients."
Doctors can use 2net to
access biometric data that a patient uploads from a mobile phone, other
cellular devices or application programming interfaces (APIs) connected to the
customer service platform. 2net encrypts the data before transmitting it over a
cellular connection.
Companies developing mobile
devices for 2net include A&D Medical, AirStrip
Technologies, AT&T and Nonin Medical.
Meanwhile, on Dec. 5 A&D
announced that its medical devices and the Tactio TargetWeight Pro application
would work with the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.
TargetWeight is a dashboard
application that keeps track of weight goals and health conditions such as
diabetes and metabolic syndrome, which are medical disorders that together
could increase the risk of developing cardiovascular
disease and diabetes.
2net will work with diabetes
management systems like Entra Health Systems' MyGlucoHealth
Wireless Bluetooth blood glucose meter, which allows patients to transmit
blood glucose readings using mobile phones.
In addition, Qualcomm has
established a $100 million Qualcomm Life Fund to develop wireless health
services and push for their adoption. Investments will focus on areas such as
personal wellness and disease management. Qualcomm will also invest in
biosensors for chronic disease and wellness, remote diagnosis for independent
living and health care analytics software.
Qualcomm has also funded a
study on how
mobile applications affect medication adherence. The Vocel Pill Phone application,
which measures how well patients follow their medication schedules,
incorporates Qualcomm's chipsets.
Brian T. Horowitz is a freelance technology and health writer as well as a copy editor. Brian has worked on the tech beat since 1996 and covered health care IT and rugged mobile computing for eWEEK since 2010. He has contributed to more than 20 publications, including Computer Shopper, Fast Company, FOXNews.com, More, NYSE Magazine, Parents, ScientificAmerican.com, USA Weekend and Womansday.com, as well as other consumer and trade publications. Brian holds a B.A. from Hofstra University in New York.
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