Track your medical devices with your iPhone: Tracking medical devices from manufacturer, through distribution and on to end users is an inventory nightmare. Enter Jacksonville, Fla.-based Medical Tracking Solutions and its iTraycer app. The patented, mobile, medical pinning and tracking solution provides real-time tracking of medical trays, devices and biologics, including part and lot numbers, from manufacturer to patient. The app lets you locate, search and pin tray, device or biologic using the iPhone’s GPS capability. The app also provides real-time inventory and recall information and comes with a customizable back-office web suite for medical organizations and authorized field reps. Offered as an iPhone app, iTraycer can also be used with Apple’s iPad or iTouch devices. Android, Pocket PC and Blackberry versions are in development. 
Continuous ECG monitoring on an Android phone: Imec, an electronics research institute out of Leuven, Belgium, has teamed up with the R&D Holst Centre and TASS, a software company out of Augusta, Kan., to create a mobile and wearable ECG system based around an Android smartphone. It looks like the major achievement was overcoming the power-hungry nature of Bluetooth, by using a totally different, low-power transmission system. Relying on less power should allow for longer continuous monitoring sessions while patients go about their days. 
New Seca 360 wireless system: Hamburg, Germany-based Seca released a wireless line of scales, stadiometers and readout printers for pediatricians and general practitioners. The individual devices can be integrated into electronic medical record systems for automatic data entry, without having to run cables from room to room.
DynaVox Maestro for patients with communication disorders: DynaVox out of Pittsburgh released the Maestro device for people with various communication disorders. The tablet device can speak with different voices and multiple languages (English, Spanish, German, French) and is able to interface with other devices. Because it’s a real Windows 7 machine, you can run whatever else you want right on it. It has a camera that can serve as an eye tracker, different input options, Bluetooth, a 64GB solid-state disk drive and comes with DynaVox InterAACt Series 5 communication software. And judging by the size of its built-in speakers, it may serve as the perfect cross between a netbook and a ghetto blaster for the 21st century.
A weekly roundup of new developments in wireless medical technology and mHealth, by MedGadget.com.
