Remote Health Monitors - Great concept, needs simple implementation...

Remote health monitors make a lot of sense for patients who definitely need it, like those recovering from surgery or suffering from a monitoring-intensive malady - but I'm hoping they'll start to edge into general use among the healthy, helping with the early detection of problems. These devices collect health information from a patient at home and transmit it back to a monitoring physician for analysis; fancier ones also deliver info from the doctor the patient, such as advice or warnings based on the data. The opportunity for good usability design is, arguably, in what ways the monitor collects its info from the user - and many are pretty slick (even sneaky!) about it, collecting weight from a Bluetooth-enabled scale without the user having to do anything extra, or receiving a wireless broadcast from an insulin pump every so often. Rather than the patient having to remember these kinds of things and deliver a vague report during checkups ("I think I take this pill two or three times a week"), the doctor has all the hard numbers right there, up to date and ready to go. Systems like this already monitor fancier cars and alert dealers to call the owners to set up maintenance appointments; it only makes sense that we should do the same for our bodies!

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