Health Apps: US FDA Plans Oversight of Mobile Medical Apps – CNBC
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A fast-growing number of software applications offers doctors the chance to view X-rays or monitor heart rates from iPads or smartphones, prompting U.S. health officials on Tuesday to propose government oversight for some of the more complex health apps.

A portion of the apps perform tasks that mimic the work of medical devices and could cause harm if they failed to perform as promised,Food and Drug Administration officials said.

New FDA guidelines state that in some cases software developers would have to show their apps worked as well as non-mobile devices for the same use.

The agency would have to provide clearance for those apps before they could be sold. FDA officials said they recognized the potential benefits from mobile medical apps and aimed to encourage future development.

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Ongoing Audio Notifications?
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Does anyone want their phone to give them motivational messages while they are working out?

With winter here, any outdoor workouts probably mean the phone is buried in a pocket and the gloves are on.  So what’s the best way to get feedback on your performance? We are thinking that periodic SPEECH notification of heart rate, respiration rate, workout zone and intensity might work well. 

With the earphones gloves and headset on this could be a great way of adjusting intensity without stopping to look at the device. What does everyone think? Which items should be spoken?  How configurable?    Let us know.

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Sensing patients’ needs 24/7 – Dec 2010
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Sensing patients’ needs 24/7 – Dec 2010.

14 Dec 2010
A contact-free patient monitoring system from Israel is winning attention andNurses are more comfortable attending to a patient knowing that their other patients are being constantly monitored by EarlySense's EverOn system. investment dollars for its potential to save lives, shorten hospital stays, and save money for patient-care facilities.

Nurses are more comfortable attending to a patient knowing that their other patients are being constantly monitored by EarlySense’s EverOn system.

By Avigayil KadeshA unique Israeli-made contact-free patient monitoring system is winning attention and investment dollars for its potential to save lives, shorten hospital stays, and save money for patient-care facilities.

The accuracy of the FDA-approved EverOn System to measure, record, and document respiration and heart rate automatically and continuously is detailed in a report published this month in the Journal of Medical Engineering and Technology. Its manufacturer, Ramat Gan-based EarlySense, also stresses the wider effects of its capabilities.
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Workout Zone Widget
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So this is what we came up with for the workout zone widget…

The best news is that the application infrastructure we use for btHeart and btScale now has the full capability to support many different widgets, we’ll be rolling them out shortly, along with support for Zephyr’s BioHarness.

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btHeart Widget?
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We had some requests for an Android Widget that could be placed along side your music player widget while you are working out.  Sounds like a good idea to us so we started working on it.  We will probably increase the price of the app by $0.25 when it is done, so buy the app now to save big!

This is what we are thinking the widget might look like, let us know if you have any ideas…

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We are now on Facebook and Twitter!
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Be a fan, Follow us,  search Pye Brook!

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btHeart Help
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btHeart Help coming soon!

Posted in btHeart Help | 6 Comments

About btHeart
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We are working on the documentation for the application.  To get you started a primer of the main screen is below.  Tap on any of the graphs to zoom in on the live picture.

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The heart rate data read from your heart rate monitor is recorded in a text log file.  The file is in the standard “CSV” format and can be imported into spreadsheet like Microsoft Excel or Google Docs.  The  log files are on your device’s SDCARD, in a directory named “hrmlog” . btScale always writes its log to the file named “hrm.log”.

restartworkoutEvery time you select the “Restart Workout” option the “hrm.log” file will be renamed using the current date and time.  A new HRM.LOG file will then be created.   You can delete any of the logs in this directory at any time they are not in use.

Posted in News | 9 Comments

Download and Install MedTalk™
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Download and Install the Application

Download MedTalk from the Android MarketOn your Android 2.2 telephone, PDA or tablet open the Android Market Application and find the MedTalk Application.

There are three easy ways to do this:

(1) On your device, scan the QR code to the right

OR

(2) Open a web browser on your device click the link on the right

OR

(3) On your device, open the Android Market and search for “MedTalk”
MedTalk™ SNOMED-CT Browser uses the SNOMED-CT data licensed to Pye Brook Company, Inc. by  National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine.  Our license allows us to distribute only into IHTDSO member countries.  The MedTalk application asks your device to tell it the current country.
Open the MedTalk application.  One of the next three screens will be displayed based upon the country you are in…

Can’t Determine Countrydownload_no_country

If MedTalk can’t determine the country you are in you will see an informational message.

At the bottom of the screen is a button you can click to re-check your location.  Sometimes re-checking will allow MedTalk to determine your current country.

If re-checking does not work, we can manually confirm that you are in a member country if you send us an email. After we confirm that you are in a member country we can provide you with instructions on how to manually download the MedTalk SNOMED data and install it.

download_non_membersCountry Not Allowed

If MedTalk can determine which country you are in, but that country is not enabled for automatic data download and installation, you will see an informational message.

At the bottom of the screen is a button you can click to re-check your location.  Sometimes re-checking will allow MedTalk to determine your current country.

If re-checking does not work, we can manually confirm that you are in a member country if you send us an email. After we confirm that you are in a member country we can provide you with instructions on how to manually download the MedTalk SNOMED data and install it.

Application Confirms That Your Country Licensed

download_member_countryIf MedTalk can determine the country you are in and that country is enabled for automatic data download, you will see an informational message

At the bottom of the screen is a button you can click to start the SNOMED-CT download.

After you confirm that you are connected to a reliable, high-speed network (it’s a lot of data!) click the download button.

If the download does not complete because it is too much to send over your network connected, we can manually confirm that you are in a member country if you send us an email. After we confirm that you are in a member country we can provide you with instructions on how to manually download the MedTalk SNOMED data and install it.

Click “Yes” to confirm you are ready to download and install the data.

download_ready_confirm

Acknowledge the data and application copyrights…

download_ihtdso_noticedownload_snomed_noticedownload_pbci_notice

Do you have enough space on your sdcard?

The application will warn you one more time about the size of the data set.  Click ‘”Yes” to continuedownload_storage_notice

MedTalk SNOMED CT Database downloads from the Internet

The compressed database will begin downloading from the Internet…

download_progress

MedTalk SNOMED CT Database decompressed

After the compressed database is downloaded, it will automatically be decompressed to your sdcard

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Download and Install Complete

When the MedTalk SNOMED CT database has been downloaded, decompressed and installed you will see a message.  Click “OK” when you are ready.
download_done

MedTalk Status Information

statusAfter the download and install completes, and when the MedTalk SNOMED CT Browser first starts, you will see a status screen.

On the screen is information about the database, the dataset used to create the database, and the information in the database.

Click your “Menu” button and select the search option to perform a SNOMED CT search.  

 

Configure Android Search Provider settings_medtalk_snomed_highlight

The MedTalk application can also be configured to provide search results whenever you search using the “Search” button on your device.  Use your device settings screen, “search” option to add MedTalk as a search provider. 

If you enable MedTalk as a search provider, it will give you search results along with the other s4earch providers., like Google, on your device.
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MedTalk™ SNOMED CT® Browser
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MedTalk™ puts the entire SNOMED-CT concept database in your pocket.

If you are an medical information professional or medical technology integrator you know how hard it is to find the right SNOMED-CT concept or identifier to use when transmitting data to or from a medical information system.  medTalk puts the entire SNOMED-CT nomenclature in your pocket.

The application and all the required data  are installed on your Android based telephone. After the application is installed it doesn’t need to be connected to the internet.

The easy to use application is fully searchable and easily browsable.  You can search for the exact SNOMED-CT concept, search for a word that might be part of the conceptif you know it.  OR you can search for a related term and then browse the SNOMED-CT hierarchy until you find the exact concept that you need.

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