Düsseldorf, 13 November 2017 – The Internet of Things is helping to remedy the ailing health care system. Today, the average German spends seven hours a year sitting in doctor’s waiting rooms. This is all set to change though, because connected technology will eliminate unnecessary waiting times in doctor’s surgeries and needless trips to accident & emergency. Medisanté’s Connected Care Service makes this possible. It transfers medical device data straight from the patient to the physician via the Internet of Things. This considerably simplifies patient treatment – even in their homes. It also gives the GPs of patients with chronic diseases a complete overview of their vital data at all times. The patient is only asked to call in to the surgery if their vital data deteriorates so that a potential emergency situation can be avoided. The special Vodafone IoT SIM card guarantees the maximum protection of sensitive patient data, which is stored on highly secure servers in Germany.
In the future, patients won’t have to wait at the doctor’s surgery for their blood pressure and blood sugar level to be assessed by the GP after a routine check-up because a combined device will measure both values and send the data via a secure Vodafone connection straight to the GP - without the usual detour via global cloud and smartphone. GPs will then be able to monitor their patients' blood pressure and blood sugar levels on a daily basis and adjust the medication if necessary. If the values deteriorate, the GP can contact the patient and help them avoid a potential trip to accident & emergency.
“Everything will be connected via the Internet of Things, from blood pressure or blood sugar level measuring devices to smart body scanner scales for the early detection of heart failure,” explained Jochen Busch, Head of IoT Central Europe. The Medisanté devices transmit the data via a secure wireless link to the physician in near real-time. “Connected Care is also taking people out of the waiting rooms and A&E units, because routine visits to read out and evaluated data will be considerably quicker. That frees up time for important examinations and physician-patient discussions,” added Jochen Busch. Vodafone is helping to counteract the shortage of physicians, especially in rural regions, with its IoT technology because it eliminates the need for patients to make long journeys to the nearest town or city to get a medical check-up.
The patients take the measurements in their home with the first 2-in-1 blood pressure and blood sugar level measuring device by Medisanté with built-in Vodafone IoT SIM card. The partners will be presenting the smart measuring device, which has been certified for its measurement accuracy by the European Society of Hypertension (ESH), at the Medica fair in Germany. “Patients find our medical-grade connected devices easy to use because they don’t need Bluetooth synchronisation with a smartphone or an app to transmit the data“, explained Gilles Lunzenfichter of Medisanté. “Another thing“, added Lunzenfichter, “is that our global IoT partnership with Vodafone and the new Medisanté ELIOT platform give doctors direct real-time access to their chronically sick patients’ vital data“.
Vodafone’s special IoT platform facilitates communication between machines, equipment, vehicles and now also medical devices. The SIM cards that are built into the devices offer a very high level of security in the Internet of Things because they encrypt all communications and send them directly to the doctor’s dashboard. The data is stored on stringently certified servers in Germany. Only authorised dashboard users can access patient data.
The system is also suitable for the post-hospitalisation care of patients in their own homes. It allows the physician to keep an eye on the vital data of heart or stroke patients, for example, and respond quickly in an emergency.
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