iPhone 4S Bluetooth Advantage

I continue to believe that the iPhone 4S is much better than what some in the media panned. Peter Svensson at the Sidney Morning Herald did an excellent job of reporting about a little-noticed feature that makes the 4S unique among smartphones (See iPhone 4S first phone for low-power Bluetooth). The updated Bluetooth feature enables the iPhone 4S to communicate with a new class of wireless devices not previously in the mix — for example, watches and heart-rate monitors.

Bluetooth has been around since 1994. I use it to connect my iPhone to the audio and phone system in my car and to connect a keyboard to the iPad 2. What is new about the Bluetooth chip in the 4S is that it can support connecting to devices that use much less power than has been the case. The new ultra-low power chip uses so little power that it is found in devices that are powered by a “button cell” battery like what is found in watches and which can last for years.

The industry group behind Bluetooth said these small devices will be labeled “Bluetooth Smart.” Devices such as the iPhone 4S that support the new standard will be labeled “Bluetooth Smart Ready.”

Casio announced that it will introduce a Bluetooth Smart watch in December that will be able to link to a smartphone and alert the wearer to incoming emails and text messages by beeping and vibrating. Sony Ericsson had a watch five years ago that did the same thing, but it weighed nearly half a pound because of its big battery.

The possibilities in healthcare are exciting. Nordic Semiconductor, a Norwegian company, said that one of its Bluetooth Smart chips will be used in a belt that monitors heart rate and relays it to a smartphone. Other possibilities include glucose sensors for diabetics and sensors that can tell if a chronically ill person has fallen or had a significant change in posture. Home health monitoring is entering a phase of innovation that has the potential to improve quality of life and reduce the cost of healthcare. Stay tuned!

EMRs — The Time is Now

Electronic medical records (EMRs) are on the way, and not any too soon. The government is offering large incentives to healthcare providers to start using EMRs and for those who skip the incentive, there will be penalties to follow. Whatever you may think of the EMR, it is at our doorstep. I am not making a political statement about this – to me it is common sense and a technological imperative that will reduce costs, enhance healthcare quality, and improve patient safety. A reader sent me an account of what he and his family experienced two weeks ago and, with his permission, I am sharing this true story because I think it is one of millions of examples that justify the move to EMRs.

The reader is from California and I will call him Frank for purposes of this post. Frank’s 15-year-old son Alex was scheduled for non-emergency pulmonary valve replacement surgery on Friday afternoon. He was born with a number of congenital heart defects and had open-heart surgery at 30 days old 15 years ago. A recent MRI showed his pulmonary valve to be leaking extensively so it was recommended it be replaced with a new adult-sized pig valve. Before leaving for the hospital Friday morning, Frank received a phone call saying that Alex had been bumped from the schedule due to a critical newborn with heart problems.

Although Frank understood the bump, Alex took it extremely hard. As the day wore on, he got more and more upset and stressed out. Around 9 PM he mentioned that he was having shortness of breath and was having pains around his heart. Since he had a full pre-op earlier that week, Frank’s immediate thoughts were that this was a combination of extreme stress and possibly indigestion, but he decided to take Alex to the local hospital emergency room (ER). Once there, clinicians checked Alex’s vital signs and ran an EKG. The ER doctor did a quick echocardiogram. After reviewing the test results, the ER Doctor asked if Frank had any historical EKG’s so that a comparison could be made to Alex’s abnormal EKG.

Around 11 PM Frank signed the paperwork to authorize a search for the EKG — the nursing staff started calling hospitals where Alex had been a patient to see if they could obtain EKG data. They hit a brick wall. The large hospital where Alex had the pre-op wanted to help but had no access to data. A call to the cardiology specialist’s office got a recording — they were closed.

As Frank reflected on the data void, he realized that he can download an obscure piece of music from multiple sources on the web, but in spite of valiant efforts, he could not get a copy of Alex’s EKG. Isn’t it a collection of ones and zeroes, just like music? Although it was a stressful weekend for Frank, Alex began to feel better and was able to go back to school the next day.

On Saturday morning Frank did an extensive web search, and found that Medic Alert provides emergency information to caregivers if a physician sends them data. This is a great service, but shouldn’t it be an automatic by-product of healthcare by any caregiver? From Frank’s perspective, having access to someone’s past EKG could either save a life, prevent misdiagnosis or save time and money. To Frank, it seems like a basic for anyone with an affected child or if they themselves have a potentially serious ailment. Frank’s perception is that EKGs for the most part are still “paper driven” and nobody is thinking about getting them on the web as a standard practice.

Alex has a new surgery date in early November. Hopefully, Alex will be feeling better, and with the surgery delay he should get to finish his soccer season.

It is time for healthcare to catch up to banking, e-shopping, e-music, YouTube, and social networking. What could be more important that the health of our families? Privacy is a valid and important concern, but it can and is being addressed as part of the rollout of EMR systems.

Alex’s privacy was intact – his EKG results were in a manila folder somewhere – private, secure, and unavailable when needed.

Tags: cardiac, ekg, emr, health care, Healthcare, heart, heart surgery, phr, surgery

iPhone 4S Tracking

UPS tracking shows that the iPhone 4S is in Windsor Locks, Connecticut after arriving in Louisville, KY. Before that the iphone was in Anchorage, Alaska, where it arrived from Chek Lap Kok, Hong Kong. The origination of the shipment was somewhere in China, and from there it went to Shenzhen, China enroute to Hong Kong. I am expecting the 4S to arrive mid-day tomorrow and I can’t wait. Stay tuned. Meanwhile iOS 5 is running on both the iPhone 4 and the iPad 2. The press has had mixed views, but my view is quite positive. The key feature is iCloud. I tested it today. You take a picture with the iPhone and then go to your MacBook or PC or iMac, and the picture is there in your Photo Stream. iCloud is implementing cloud computing for the consumer. Much more to come on the subject.

Tags: 4s, apple, fedex, icloud, ipad, iPhone, iphone 4, iphone 4s, iphone4, itunes

Steve Jobs

The outpouring of stories about Steve Jobs has been impressive and certainly justified in tribute to an incredible person such as Steve Jobs. I am very saddened by the loss of such a vibrant and creative human being. I don’t think about the price of the Apple shares I own, but I can’t help but think about the human and medical aspects of his passing. I don’t know much about his wife and children, but I feel for them — it must have been painful for many months and perhaps years knowing that their husband and father was likely going to die. Miracles happen every day in healthcare, but in spite of a patient who no doubt knew more about his condition than many doctors might know, no cure was possible. If you have not read The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee, I highly recommend it. The novel-like non-fiction book tells the story of cancer from thousands of years ago through the many episodes of research.  In 2010, more than 500,000 Americans died of cancer, more than 1,500 people a day. Cancer is the second most common cause of death in the US, exceeded only by heart disease. In spite of these large numbers,  to die from pancreatic cancer at the age of 56 is rare. And Steve Jobs was rare. Some say there will not be another hero such as him for a very long time, if ever. I never met Steve Jobs, but I did talk with him by telephone back in the early 1990′s. My assistant said that Mr. Jobs was on the phone and wanted to talk to me. He was CEO of NeXT, Inc. at the time. I was vice president of marketing for IBM’s personal software products. Our product was an operating system for PCs called OS/2. NeXT had an operating systems for PCs. It was not well known, but Tim Berners-Lee was using NeXT when he invented the World Wide Web in 1989-1990. Steve wanted to talk about possible collaboration. What amazed me was that the CEO of a company seemed to knew every detail about NeXT, how it worked, how it was built, what it could do. Attention to detail and unmerciful demands for flawless execution seem to be what brought the company from near failure to the most valuable company in the world. I read in one article that Steve had coached his team on how to handle the launch of the iPhone 4S on Wednesday. It would not surprise me if that is what kept him going near the end, and then when the launch was over and successful, he passed away. It would not surprise me to see a philanthropic move emerge that will be as beautiful as his products. I am currently reading the biography of Einstein by Walter Isaacson. In two weeks the Isaacson biography of Steve Jobs will offer great insight about the legend.

Tags: apple, einstein, iPhone, isaacson, jobs, steve jobs

Kindle 456

There are quite a few stories here in patrickWeb about the Kindle and about Amazon (see the links to the left for indexes to both topics). I confess that I am a fan of both. I also love the iPad — but for different reasons. The media loves to write about arch rivals and head-to-head competitors. They want to speculate about whether Fire will win out over the iPad. I don’t see it that way. In fact I see them both as winners. There is not going to be one device that is best for all things for all people. That is the great thing about consumer technology — there is something for everyone. Some will be happy to have an iPad as their sole “computer” and use it for reading books, writing stories, doing their email, and shopping on the Web. Others will want more purpose-centric devices. If you read a lot of books, you will want a Kindle. If you like to read outdoors, forget about using an iPad. On Saturday I received the new $79 Kindle. (I ordered the Kindle Touch and a Fire also but they will not be available until November). The new Kindle is great. It has no keyboard and is therefore smaller. You can hold it in your hand and read to your heart’s content and never get a sore wrist. It weighs next to nothing. The e-ink makes the words clear as a bell indoors or outdoors. If there is something you need to type, it has an onscreen keyboard that lets you select with the cursor. If you are going to write a story, that would be no good but to enter the SSID of your home WiFi network to get started, it is no problem. The new Kindle is #4 for me. I sold the Kindle DX on eBay and handed down one to my wife who doesn’t care about having the very latest model like I do. When the Kindle Touch and Fire (Kindles 5 & 6) arrive, I plan to donate a Kindle or two to the local senior center. What will Fire be like? I can’t wait to try it, but I expect it will be great for consuming media and for shopping — probably better than the iPad. When it comes to syncing my board papers between Dropbox and Goodreader, I expect the iPad will continue as the preferred solution. I expect the apps for CNBC and Bloomberg financial reporting, aviation and healthcare apps and many other apps will continue to be best on the iPad. I don’t see a replacement for FaceTime with the grandchildren. The best news is that we have some competition for tablets. That may make Apple the first company to have a market value of a trillion dollars, or it may mean that there are enough differences in the preferences of billions of people in the world that there is room for at least a handful of very successful products and companies. My bet is on the latter.

iPad stories on patrickWeb
Kindle stories on patrickWeb

Tags: amazon, apple, book, books, dropbox, goodreader, ipad, Kindle