It is clear that the Internet and mobile phones have transformed the way we live.

People can now listen to whatever radios they want, watch TV on their mobiles and I believe they would benefit more from ways to access expertise no matter where they are.

I find it amazing that for shopping, education, entertainment, the place where you live does not seem to be a factor in terms of access, but when it comes to healthcare, there are still huge differences depending on the quality of the local healthcare system.

The fact that people know/care more about what happens inside their cars instead of inside their bodies still surprises me.

Physiological sensors can help people better understand how their lifestyle influences their health and they can also raise flags that would otherwise be unnoticed or be revealed only through crises.

There are two aspects of the Saphire project that I think are very important: Interoperability and web services.

Having the data available via web services solves the problem of many users that do not want to have to install several software packages corresponding to each sensor or pathology. It also means that user interfaces can quickly be tailored to the users wishes in terms of language, graphical interface etc…

The interoperability aspect will hopefully be a first step towards manufacturers realizing that users want to be able to use best of breed devices or software and are therefore growing increasingly frustrated with proprietary protocols. Managing medical data in the digital age is already difficult enough.

Starting with cardiology applications is challenging just because of the volume of data to treat and the complexity of interpretation, but after that, adding other applications to the Saphire platform should be much easier. For future dissemination, validating the use of Bluetooth sensors within a hospital environment (and possibly mobile phones for alerts) is also key issue.

As the project will provide a platform for real time biomedical data transmission and signal processing, there will be several possible extensions of the project, possibly with a different set of sensors, for example in neonatal intensive care units.



Michael Setton,
CyberFab CEO