UK law firm Eversheds reports Microsoft has applied for a patent for workplace monitoring software. It could remotely monitor a worker's wellbeing, productivity and competence using metabolic measures like heart rate, temperature and movement and relate them to their psychological profile.

Trade unions are concerned that such software could be used to support cases for dismissal, but Eversheds reminds us of its double edge. Workers may equally be able to claim they were subject to undue stress, which might entitle them to reasonable adjustments to their job and working conditions.

I attended a healthcare CIO conference at Microsoft in Reading UK last week. Fellow blogger Dr. Bill Crounce showed a short clip of a vision of future healthcare that made use of remote monitoring and also surface computing. Cabinets next to a patient's bed could indicate to a patient or a carer when it was time for medication to be to be taken by coloured rings around the drug containers, for instance.

Posted by Colin Jervis, Kinetic Consulting at 05:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The man who occupied the room next to mine in my last year as an undergraduate has made the news. Shyam is interviewed in a feature on BBC World's Click.

Mauritius is creating a Cyberisland with wireless connections available to most of its citizens. Not only that, but cyberbuses travel the island allowing people, such as agricultural workers, who may be unable to access the Internet to do so.

Posted by Colin Jervis, Kinetic Consulting at 09:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I have asserted the rapid adoption of wireless technologies will be a potent force for change in healthcare. In South Africa only 1 in 100 have broadband and remote areas may not even have telecommunications.

An episode of the BBC's ClickOnline this morning described how an AIDS clinic in the rural community of Peebles Valley is exploiting wireless to improve care. Clinic and a hospice are several kilometres apart and find it hard to communicate because of the hilly terrain. They have solved this problem by using a network of antennae inserted into tin cans, which focus the full power of the wireless transmissions giving the WiFi network added range.

Nurses and doctors now access the patient database and communicate using Voice over IP (VOIP).

Read the full article on the BBC site.

Posted by Colin Jervis, Kinetic Consulting at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I apologise for not posting recently--a result of holiday and sharpening my skills by attending courses.

The city of Norwich in the UK has deployed the UK's largest free Wi-Fi network, which spans 4 kilometres.

Coverage by BBC TV showed a community midwife visiting a mother and newborn. The midwife was able to sit in her car, update and read records and check the latest advice, which she found a boon.

This is certainly a taste of future healthcare: wireless applications will, paradoxically, allow care to centralise and devolve. Specialists may be centralised in monitoring and diagnostic centres, while generalists may be devolved and mobile.

Posted by Colin Jervis, Kinetic Consulting at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

On the London Underground everyone seems plugged into one. Even above ground in healthcare MP3 players are becoming ubiquitous.

Continue reading "Sounds Healthy: iPOD in healthcare" »

Posted by Colin Jervis, Kinetic Consulting at 07:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Now I am a sucker for a cute gadget, especially one finished in black and silver that combines telephony and wireless. No surprise then that I spotted the Vocera badge on Telindus' stand at HC 2006. Vocera's system combines software with the badge to integrate PBX, pager, cellphone and push to talk.

Continue reading "Commanding Voice: combining telephony and wireless" »

Posted by Colin Jervis, Kinetic Consulting at 06:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)