Remote medical monitoring wasn’t the first thing that went through my mind as I watched a friend bounce over the top of a car after a collision while riding our motorcycles yesterday, but it was foremost in my mind by the end of the day.
I’ve no idea how he walked away from the head-on smash, but he did and the car driver was also unhurt. Dust settled, bike and rider recovered to home, we then forced him to visit the local hospital for a check up. The treatment he received was excellent, and he was given a clean bill of health – and a stack of painkillers that I imagine he’ll need today.
As we sat waiting for the all clear, though, I recalled every presentation about remote monitoring equipment, and wished it was something we had access to. I was concerned that my friend might need help in the middle of the night, and immediately saw the practical applications for this machine-to-machine (M2M) based equipment in ‘keeping an eye’ on him when we left him alone.
It was only last week, during my visit to Ericsson’s Consumer Lab, that I saw some of the M2M kit available today, and was told that none of it requires huge amounts of data capacity. That means network upgrades aren’t necessarily required to make this happen here and now.
So why isn’t it? As the guys at Ericsson point out, remote monitoring frees up the patient, saves hospitals time (and keeps beds clear for real emergencies), and benefits operators, who can provide the monitoring as a service (MaaS?).
Let’s stop talking about it and make it happen.