Motorola testing solution for health monitoring through mobile phones

Motorola is working with Partners Telemedicine, a service of Harvard-affiliated Teaching Hospitals, to test Motohealth, a solution that uses mobile phones to help healthcare providers to monitor chronically ill patients away from hospitals and their homes.

Motohealth uses FDA-approved body sensors to transmit data about the patient's condition to the healthcare provider via the patient's Motorola mobile phone. This discreet way of monitoring patients may replace in-home monitoring devices, giving chronic disease patients more independence to continue their daily activities outside their homes.

"Chronic diseases such as diabetes and obesity have reached epidemic proportions in the United States," said Dr. Joseph C. Kvedar, M.D., corporate director, Partners Telemedicine; president, American Telemedicine Association; and vice chair, Dermatology, Harvard Medical School, who serves as the Principal Investigator on this clinical trial. "Medical studies have indicated that daily monitoring helps patients with chronic diseases to maintain appropriate drug, diet and exercise regimens. By focusing on diseases that can be managed with proper prevention and that account for the majority of healthcare costs, MOTOHEALTH could lower healthcare spending by managing chronic diseases before they get to the point where excessive spending is necessary for treatment."

"Motorola's vision for the Motohealth project is to push healthcare out of high-cost facilities and to the patient, enabling the body to become the point of care," said Peter Aloumanis, director, U.S. Markets Division, Motorola's iDEN Subscriber Group.