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AT&T announced a trio of health care IT initiatives and services, including the AT&T Foundry for Connected Health, which will open in February 2016 at the Texas Medical Center (TMC) Innovation Institute in Houston.
The company is also expanding its remote patient monitoring (RPM) offering by providing a bring your own device (BYOD) option to the service.
Finally, AT&T and YOFiMeter have reached an agreement that will enable people with diabetes to wirelessly transmit their blood sugar levels, other biometric data and voice notes.
The AT&T Foundry will focus on digital health innovations that benefit those in and out of the clinical care environment, with the aim of helping caregivers and patients bridge the gap between a clinical setting and home.
Along with fostering new and innovative companies in the space, the AT&T Foundry will be a resource for TMC’s physicians and innovators looking to create integrated and connected healthcare solutions.
TMC’s Innovation Institute currently houses several medical innovation programs including the TMCx accelerator, a fellowship program, as well as a workspace for health startups and innovation incubators.
AT&T’s Remote Patient Monitoring kit comes with Bluetooth-enabled health and wellness devices. These are devices like a blood pressure cuff, a pulse oximeter and a scale that all sync to the provided tablet and a cloud-based caregiver portal.
The BYOD option lets patients replace the tablet that is provided with the kit with their own personal device, and patients can then sync their biometric data and transfer it to the caregiver portal and their health care team.
Because patients often need to change their daily routine, including their medication and diet, to help combat chronic conditions, using the AT&T Remote Patient Monitoring app allows users to collect their health data through synced up devices or manually.
This enables them to communicate with their caregiver and better manage their condition, and once they have their vitals, patients go through a list of questions on their device to give caregivers more insight to how they’re feeling and following their care plan.
The YOFiMeter Connected Glucose Meter, once cleared by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will open another line of communication between caregivers and patients over AT&T’s secure network.
YOFiMeter is working with the FDA on the clearance process with production expected to start in early 2016.
YOFiMeter works with a diverse team of endocrinologists, practitioners, health care institutions, patients and other stakeholders to create a device with a clean slate approach–a device that fits into their lives without disrupting it.