Monday, November 17, 2008

Medical Alarm

Hey, this is interesting. I stumbled upon a website selling customer care service and products related to safety. They sell some kind of Medical Alarm Systems, one for inside the house and one for the outside. I am always interested in stuff related to medical (thanks to my parents who work as nurses and sorry for them that none of their children pursue a career as a doctor. Well, they don't complain though :D)

The interesting feature of the inside-the-house system (they call it Tele-Assist) is Fall Detector. Imagine when your grandmother is at home, alone, and you know that she’s not in her fittest state as she’s ever been before but you couldn’t be around. The product has a panic button, which alert the family, doctor, or emergency help when pressed. But if somehow the wearer cannot even press the panic button, the fall detector will alert the company’s operator, who will act accordingly once (s)he has assessed the situation. It is wonderful how new technology (like the detector) can help people.

For outside, they use Mobile GPS in the form of a watch. They claim that the device will connect you to help no matter where you are in the world. It will send your GPS location to a trained professional in case of emergency. I think this is very useful. I can imagine how hard it is to create such complex connection of medical alarm system with other actors in the environment, such as the doctors, emergency ambulance, et cetera. It is difficult especially in developing countries, for instance my home country. I don’t know how they could do it if a customer actually travels to Indonesia and goes to some rural areas.

Nevertheless, such technology implemented in this medical alarm system is admirable and could really help. I only hope that the infrastructure in Indonesia could get better to actually make use of such technology in a large scale.

Oh ya, I found their video in YouTube, here goes:

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