Bluetooth SIG Partners with Major Medical Device Manufacturers

Hundreds of millions of people worldwide who suffer with chronic illnesses, from diabetes to high blood pressure and heart disease, could benefit from a Bluetooth SIG effort aimed at allowing health-related devices to work with consumer electronics products.
The Bluetooth SIG has formed a Medical Devices Working Group comprised of 19 member companies including IBM, Intel, Motorola, Nonin Medical, Philips Electronics and Welch Allyn — the team will work to create and ratify a Bluetooth Medical Device Profile that will expand the use of Bluetooth technology into the medical, health and fitness markets. The new profile will ensure a comprehensive, yet easy, user experience and optimized interoperability between health-related devices and personal consumer electronics products such as mobile phones, PCs and PDAs where Bluetooth technology is already common.
The Working Group will begin work immediately, drafting the specification this year with the new profile available for use in devices in the first half of 2007. The completed profile will run on all current versions of Bluetooth technology including the future high-speed version. Although Bluetooth enabled medical devices currently exist, the method of Bluetooth communications used is proprietary and therefore not usually interoperable with devices from other manufacturers.
For more information, visit www.bluetooth.com.