Big Brother is finding new and inventive ways to keep track of you these days, thanks to an explosion in technology, and that now includes the healthcare industry, once considered a bastion of privacy.
According to Wired magazine, a new "smart" asthma inhaler, which is designed to work in conjunction with a computer suite, allows health professions to track when a patient is having an asthma attack - including tracking the location of the patient when the attack is occurring.
The suite, called Asthmapolis and which is being sold to consumers as a safety feature (sound familiar?), is supposed to help both patients and healthcare providers alike "better monitor the behavior of asthma," Wired reported.
The key to the system is a Bluetooth-enabled sensor that patients attach to their inhaler. Every time the inhaler is used, the sensor records both the time and the patient's location. "Using a smartphone or base station, that information is in turn transferred to Asthmapolis' servers where the data can be used by individuals to track their response to treatments or by public health officials to spot and map patterns and outbreaks," reports Wired.
Asthmapolis is designed to close the data gap by making collection of information part of taking the medicine. The puffer sensor is installed on top of the device; when the patient presses down to inhale the medicine, the sensor detects that and a GPS system and clock record the event, documenting time and place. Worse, this kind of insta-data approach is a developing trend in healthcare, industry insiders say. Asthmapolis joins other firms like Massive Health that use what they call "indirect surveillance" and data collection to get patient information.
According to Wired magazine, a new "smart" asthma inhaler, which is designed to work in conjunction with a computer suite, allows health professions to track when a patient is having an asthma attack - including tracking the location of the patient when the attack is occurring.
The suite, called Asthmapolis and which is being sold to consumers as a safety feature (sound familiar?), is supposed to help both patients and healthcare providers alike "better monitor the behavior of asthma," Wired reported.
The key to the system is a Bluetooth-enabled sensor that patients attach to their inhaler. Every time the inhaler is used, the sensor records both the time and the patient's location. "Using a smartphone or base station, that information is in turn transferred to Asthmapolis' servers where the data can be used by individuals to track their response to treatments or by public health officials to spot and map patterns and outbreaks," reports Wired.
Asthmapolis is designed to close the data gap by making collection of information part of taking the medicine. The puffer sensor is installed on top of the device; when the patient presses down to inhale the medicine, the sensor detects that and a GPS system and clock record the event, documenting time and place. Worse, this kind of insta-data approach is a developing trend in healthcare, industry insiders say. Asthmapolis joins other firms like Massive Health that use what they call "indirect surveillance" and data collection to get patient information.
