Tanita Moves into Telemedicine

Japan's Tanita Corporation - famous around the world for a range of healthcare products, notably body fat monitors and electronic scales - has announced that it is launching a new home healthcare monitoring/telemedicine venture in Japan.

You can read the official announcement (in Japanese) at the Tanita website.

The system is called the Monitoring Your Health (MYH) service. According to a report in the Nikkei Electronics journal:

Members can use a dedicated body composition monitor and a pedometer equipped with a communication function as well as a special key named "Relay Key" used for the reception of information transmitted from these measuring devices at a monthly fee of ¥1,200 [$10.25]. The Relay Key is a USB memory that can be directly connected to a personal computer.

The information stored in the Key is transmitted to the dedicated online database software called "Karada-karute (Body-chart/record)" so that users can check the transition in their personal health data every day.

Infrared communication is utilized for the transmission of information between the body composition monitor and pedometer, and the Relay Key. A blood pressure meter is also available as a measuring device option.

Various means can be used to transmit the data for analysis, either to the user's own home database, or to the remote database of a healthcare provider.

According to the Nikkei Electronics report:

Recently, more institutions are trying to consolidate information obtained from health check equipment at home. Intel Corp., Omron Health Care Co., Ltd. and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., for instance, set up Continua Health Alliance in 2006, a standardization group to set specifications for the connection between health check equipment such as a pedometer and blood glucose meter, and digital devices.
 

March 15th, 2007