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This video from
IBM and the University of
Florida demonstrates how new,
device-driven technology can change
lives for the better in the context
of healthcare delivery for
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Time:
04:28
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IBM, University of Floria attempt to extend the
scope of mobile healthcare
What people have come to expect in cell phones and personal
communicators may soon become common in
health-care devices and products at home and in
medical offices, thanks to new technology
announced today by the University of Florida and
IBM.
The technology creates the first-ever roadmap for widespread
commercial development of “smart” devices that,
for example, take a person’s blood pressure,
temperature or respiration rate the minute a
person steps into his or her house – then
transmit it immediately and automatically to
doctors or family.
That could eliminate the need for many doctor’s visits, which
are often difficult for the elderly or sick. By
enabling regular updates via text message or
e-mail, the technology also could pave the way
for people to share real-time information on
their health or well-being with absent loved
ones. And it could prove useful for doctors who
need to keep tabs on many patients at one time
by helping the doctors to prioritize whom to
treat first.
“We call it quality-of-life engineering,” said Sumi Helal,
professor of computer engineering and the
project’s lead UF researcher. “It’s really a
change of mindset.”
“UF and IBM both see the need and the opportunity to
integrate the physical world of sensors and
other devices directly into enterprise systems,”
said Richard Bakalar, Chief Medical Officer for
IBM. “Doing so in an open environment will
remove market inhibitors that impede innovation
in critical industries like health care and open
a broader device market that’s fueled by
uninterrupted networking.”
Helal has devoted the past several years to developing smart
devices for the elderly in a model home known as
the “Gator Tech Smart Home” in Gainesville.
Helal feels the current generation of devices have a major
shortcoming: They require “a team of engineers”
to install them, he said. In a world where
consumers are accustomed to electronics that
require no more than a power outlet, that
dramatically limits their appeal. “We decided to
create a technology that self integrates,” Helal
said. “When you bring it in to the house and
plug it in, it automatically provides its
service and finds a path to the outside world.”
With $60,000 in research funding from IBM, Helal designed
“middleware,” or software and hardware that
glues together different systems, that can give
his and any similar health-aid devices this
independence and connectivity. Importantly, the
software is based on open standards, or publicly
available specifications useable by anyone, such
as those now being made available by consortiums
of technology companies including Eclipse, W3C
and OSGi.
Open standards make it easy for product developers to tap the
technology in any new smart assistive devices,
Helal said. That, in turn, will make the devices
more common.
The hardware component of the system is an inexpensive sensor
platform about half the size of a business card.
Developed at UF and licensed to Pervasa, a
Gainesville-based UF spinoff company headed by
Helal, the “Atlas” platform makes it easy to
create a network of sensors and make their
information available on a computer network.
University of Florida also announced work it is carrying out
on devices that can interpret signals in the
brain and stimulate neurons to perform
correctly, advances that might someday make it
possible for a tiny computer to fix diseases or
even allow a paralyzed person to control a
prosthetic device with his thoughts.
Using a $2.5 million grant received this year from the
National Institutes of Health, UF researchers
from the College of Medicine, the College of
Engineering and the McKnight Brain Institute
have teamed up to create a “neuroprosthetic”
chip designed to be implanted in the brain. It
is hoped that such devices could correct
conditions such as paralysis or epilepsy.
