The Wi-Fi Alliance and Continua Health Alliance have entered into an agreement that calls for the two to promote the adoption of Wi-Fi networking technology in connected health applications.
Noting that Wi-Fi technology has become standard in hospitals, doctors' offices and healthcare facilities and in patient monitoring systems, the two groups aim to hammer out specs and guidelines for interoperability of personal health and fitness applications.
Health-related products from companies such as Draeger, Healthsense and Roche have already achieved the Wi-Fi certified designation. The Wi-Fi Alliance has a formal work initiative underway to explore additional certification needs for Wi-Fi across a variety of personal and clinical health care use cases.
"The health care industry has truly embraced Wi-Fi technology, which has resulted in improved patient relations, cost savings and organizational efficiencies," said Wi-Fi Alliance CEO, Edgar Figueroa. "Our collaboration with Continua Health Alliance will help drive the advancement and evolution of Wi-Fi, by providing a known and trusted technology to connect health and fitness devices."
Continua established a product certification program with a consumer-recognizable logo and released its first set of design guidelines in January of 2009.
For more:
- see this release
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