Tiny Vital Sign Chip

Check out this article that writes about a tiny chip which can make it cheaper and easier to monitor your vital signs.

The technology is called “ultrawideband,” and very well could mean the end of bulky, expensive, power-consuming electronic health monitors that take up space and hurt your wallet. The researchers plan to work with private companies and move the technology into the marketplace by mid-2013.

There are no batteries, and the energy is drawn from radio frequencies via nearby cell phone towers. The information on the chip can be tethered to cell phones and the OSU team has funding to build an app and cloud monitoring for storing the data.

For those of you who clicked over to the article, you’ll realize that the article is from 2012. That’s what I think is so amazing. Imagine what they’ve done since then.

Regardless of this specific technology, the sensors we’re using to monitor our health are getting smaller and smaller and more effective at what they do. How amazing that it’s able to get its power from nearby cell phone towers? Plus, they’re working to offer this chip for only 25 cents.

I love that we’re still barely at the beginning of this health sensor revolution. 10 years from now we’ll look back and this chip will be considered a huge chip.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

   

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