IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) and Continua Health Alliance have signed a strategic agreement to help accelerate and broaden the adoption of globally relevant standards-based technologies for the healthcare arena.
This collaboration brings together Continua, a Beaverton, Ore.-based organization dedicated to enabling end-to-end, plug-and-play interoperability for personal connected health, and IEEE-SA, the global standards-setting organization and developer of the IEEE 11073 family of standards designed for the entire healthcare continuum for personal health device communications.
A recent PricewaterhouseCoopers study identified more than $30 billion of annual costs to the U.S. healthcare system because of the lack of medical device interoperability, or simple connectivity between devices. IEEE-SA and Continua are committed to proliferating open, standards-based medical device interoperability across the industry to promote improved outcomes through consumer self-management of health and wellness, create healthcare savings, and support the market for personal connected health devices, systems and services, the organizations’ officials say.
"We are very excited about this partnership with Continua Health Alliance to further develop globally relevant standards that enable the integration of data and technology used by clinicians and caregivers to help patients live active and independent lives,” Konstantinos Karachalios, managing director, IEEE-SA, said in a statement. "As an industry alliance, Continua brings a real-world, market-based perspective to innovation in connected health. By establishing an environment for closer collaboration between our two organizations, both IEEE-SA and Continua will enable greater implementation of interoperable personal health devices for disease management, health and fitness, and independent living.”
