Global alliance prescribes Wi-Fi for health and fitness

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 23 February 2011 13:25

IT Industry - Strategy

The Wi-Fi Alliance - the global organisation set up to promote the technology - has teamed up with Continua Health Alliance - a global organisation of healthcare and healthcare technology companies - to facilitate and promote the adoption of Wi-Fi networking technology in connected health applications.

They say their collaboration will "enable cooperative efforts for joint technical review of Wi-Fi Alliance and Continua Health Alliance specifications and guidelines in order to facilitate interoperability of personal health and fitness applications, thus fuelling a great user experience and even faster adoption."

They point out that "Wi-Fi is increasingly being used to connect patient monitoring devices, home healthcare tools and more; health-related products from companies such as Draeger, Healthsense and Roche have already achieved the [Wi-Fi Alliance's] Wi-Fi Certified designation'¦[and] the Wi-Fi Alliance has a formal work initiative underway to explore additional certification needs for Wi-Fi across a variety of personal and clinical health care use cases."

According to the two bodies, "Wi-Fi technology has key attributes which make it an excellent choice to connect personal health devices. Wi-Fi provides whole-home coverage, IP-based communications, industry-standard security protections with push-button setup, and advanced power management mechanisms. With the addition of Wi-Fi Direct, there will be new ways devices can connect even when there is no Wi-Fi network available."

Wi-Fi Direct enables Wi-Fi devices to communicate without the need for a Wi-Fi access point and associated router.

Continua established a product certification program with a consumer-recognisable logo and released its first set of design guidelines in January of 2009. The testing program provides assurance that Continua Certified products will work together and "have demonstrated a capability to connect in a rigorous testing environment." Continua says it has certified many products to date and expects to certify many more in the coming months. The Continua Alliance claims to have more than 240 member companies around the world.

The organisation is "dedicated to establishing a system of interoperable personal connected health solutions with the knowledge that extending those solutions into the home fosters independence, empowers individuals and provides the opportunity for truly personalised health and wellness management."