Bangalore: Wipro Technologies has announced the launch of a next generation medical gateway solution that aims to improve healthcare coordination between patients and their care providers. Powered by Intel Atom processor, the solution enables users such as patients, doctors, and other healthcare professionals monitor, track and manage healthcare information from a remote location.

The solution also allows real-time clinical review by capturing vital data from multiple medical devices such as blood pressure monitors, glucometers, weighing scales and many more. Various medical devices can connect to the gateway solution through different interfaces such as Bluetooth, USB and so on to provide medical data, video and image transfer from a patient to a doctor and vice-versa. "The solution can also be targeted at insurance and pharma companies, hospitals and patients," said R. Manimaran, General Manager, Medical Devices, Product Engineering Services, Wipro.

The medical gateway device is installed at the patient's house. Then he or she records medical data such as BP, ECG and many more using the device, and sends them to the doctor or to a public server online. This saves the patient from having to travel to the hospital. The medical gateway solution also enables video-conferencing. According to Wipro, the patient just has to sit with his PC and the gateway solution and get connected to the doctor or the hospital. This could particularly be of use in primary healthcare in remote villages. It also claims that vis-a-vis other devices in the market, its technology cost is much lower. The company is in talks with with original equipment makers in the U.S. and the UK in remote patient monitoring to take up this technology.

"India could emerge in the top six countries in terms of providing a market for medical equipment by 2014-15," said Sanat Rao, Marketing Director for Emerging Markets, Embedded and Communications Group, Intel South Asia.