It’s nice when things happen ahead of schedule. Starting this week, HomeCheck is available in select Retail Pharmacies over the counter.

Due to the extreme accuracy and convenience of the HomeCheck-A1c, this hematology test is used to assess blood sugar control by people with diabetes, to determine elevated glucose levels in undiagnosed people with diabetes and those with a condition known as pre-diabetes, and to determine if there is an increased risk for heart attack in the non-diabetic.

Next time you’re in a retail pharmacy, you might look to see if they already carry home diagnostic test kits for cholesterol, etc… The future of testing at home is bright and promises to improve the availability and frequency of critical health feedback, but only if the quality of these tests are high. Fortunately, HomeCheck is here to raise the bar.

Wireless Healthcare 101:

Anyone who’s ever owned a GSM phone knows what a SIM card looks like. But how many people know what it does? Finally, what does this have to do with healthcare and technology used to improve health outcomes?

Announcing MediSIM Wireless^TM

SIM stands for Subscriber Identity Module. It contains the secret codes that the GSM networks need to understand critical information about the device like is it authorized to be on the network and if it’s genuine or a fake? This has pretty far reaching ramifications if it’s wrong or poorly designed so you know that hundreds of millions of R&D Dollars/Pounds/Euros/etc… have gone into and continue to evolve the quality and performance of this critical elemental connectivity technology.

Since it’s something that stands on its own (you can take it out of one phone and put it to work in another), we might as well call it a device. When used to facilitate connectivity in support of applications designed to facilitate healthcare of a diagnosed condition then it must be a medical device. Yes?

Announcing MediSIM Wireless^TM

Diabetech has pioneered wireless device and patient connectivity in the field of diabetes and currently has funded research programs supporting development of similar connectivity initiatives for other disease states as well. We also thought it was time to make this compelling component of our total solution available to other device manufacturers and program service providers in the field of diabetes as well as other disease states like cardiovascular, pulmonary and even wellness. To be clear, this isn’t new for us. Making it available for others as a way to simplify the patient experience and to ensure medical device grade compliance with regulatory tracking requirements is. Can you imagine your phone company handling your medical device connectivity and technical support questions? I can’t and I used to work for the phone company.

Simplifying the Patient Experience

People who need these new wireless medical devices using our approach receive their device pre-configured and live on our GSM/GPRS global network. No muss - No fuss. No visit to a phone store required. No separate bill to pay with complicated fee schedules or hard to understand per megabyte pricing plans. Yikes. What’s the exposure when you get something like this added to your cell phone bill? You have no way of knowing until after you’ve spent 2 - 3 months with it.

People who use certified MediSIM enabled devices pay for flat rate comprehensive outcomes-focused healthcare programs including their device(s) for one price including the activation, provisioning, taxes, and airtime or in some cases the rates may be broken out but clearly explained with references from other users. No pain, no mystery and one provider to take care of it all. That’s called simplicity and that’s what people who need these tools need most.

Accelerating the Availability of Connected Healthcare Technology and Connected Devices

While we pride ourselves on our GlucoMON devices and other device categories in earlier stages, we have opened our capabilities so that medical device manufacturers and application developers looking to leverage our experience and access to patient and provider direct programs can accelerate innovation. While there are several industry initiatives, none of them take the patient experience into account.

It doesn’t get easier than this for anyone or any company who wants to get from an idea to patient testing in the field than MediSIM. Check back here frequently for more details and updates on the world of certified MediSIM devices and MediSIM enabled programs coming soon…

You can follow the progress of Desert Dingo’s Baja 1000 Class 11 VW here at ChallengeDiabetes.com over the next several days. Stay tuned as they prepare to start the 1300 mile trek (an additional 300 miles added this year). I guess 1000 miles through the desert must have been too easy.

HomeCheck-A1c and GlucoMON are proud sponsors of Car # 1146. We’re also sporting the website url on the hood (not shown) for the newest patient resource for assisting in reimbursement for continuous glucose monitoring systems at http://cgmscentral.com.