Meridian, Cypak launch joint venture for NFC-enabled health care solutions
Meridian Health and Cypak have announced the launch of their new joint venture, iMPak Health, whose mission will be to develop smart, easy to use wireless devices and services to screen and monitor health and overall well-being.
The initial product offering from iMPak will be aimed at helping patients and physicians manage pain. iMPak’s Health Journal for Pain is a portable, lightweight, digital, NFC-enabled diary that allows patients to record their pain levels before and after their prescribed medication regimen, providing physicians with readily available patient information and reports.
“Currently, physicians encourage their patients to keep a handwritten diary of their pain intensity and response to pain medication,” says Sandra Elliott, director, Consumer Technology and Service Development at Meridian Health. “It is often a cumbersome process for patients, and seldom provides physicians with actionable data about the patient’s response to their prescribed treatment.”
Research has shown that patient compliance with keeping paper diaries is low – resulting in a lack of complete information for physicians and timely intervention. Physicians often rely on a patient’s own recollection to determine if treatment changes are warranted. iMPak has designed the Health Journal for Pain to address this issue to provide more prompt and accurate medical intervention.
The Health Journal for Pain is developed around Cypak’s Touch and Post and NFC technologies, and features a Continua Certified Smart Cable reader for PC-based wireless downloads, as well as a mobile application on NFC-enabled cell phones.
To operate the solution, patients touch the A&D reader or a cell phone with their journal and their pain readings automatically post to a back end monitoring system.