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Weekly Wireless Roundup: Qualcomm pulls the plug on LifeComm

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Qualcomm looks at its options for LifeComm: It’s been more than four years since Qualcomm first announced plans to help launch a healthcare-focused mobile phone service called LifeComm. Qualcomm and its (still) undisclosed partners recently decided it was time to pull the plug on LifeComm, after failing to raise additional third-party funding, an anonymous source told mobihealthnews. LifeComm is just one of many of Qualcomm’s health initiatives.

CardioNet nixes Biotel buy: It’s been a tough couple of months for wireless arrhythmia monitoring company CardioNet: The company terminated its plans to acquire Minnesota-based Biotel, which has its own cardiac arrhythmia monitoring business, an experienced design and development team plus manufacturing capabilities that were set to support CardioNet’s growing business. The deal was originally pegged at $14 million but, according to a press release from Biotel, CardioNet has terminated the deal.

VA cuts back on telehealth: The Dept. of Veterans Affairs announced plans to temporarily halt 45 IT projects that are either behind schedule or over budget, including telehealth-related pilots. The VA is using its Program Management Accountability System to determine which, if any, of the 45 projects should continue. Under PMAS, a third missed customer delivery milestone is cause for the project to be halted and re-planned, the VA explained in a press release. Three of the halted projects were Home Telehealth Infrastructure Enhancements, Health Data Repository II and Home Telehealth Development.

Wireless pillcam not as thorough as colonoscopy: A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that the use of a wireless pill camera, like Given Imaging’s PillCam, is not as effective as a traditional colonoscopy. PillCam is an alternative to endoscopy, which requires the insertion of a long tube into a patient, which often requires sedation. PillCam’s camera takes some 60,000 photos as it makes its way down the esophagus, into the stomach and through the intestines over a span of about eight hours.

Brian Dolan is editor of mobihealthnews, the emerging wireless health industry’s daily monitor.

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