NFC used as enabler for mhealth platform

IT management systems provider Advanced Health & Care (AHC) has partnered with MobiWire – the French firm formerly known as Sagem Wireless – to deliver an NFC-based mobile healthcare offering.

While NFC is expected to play a major part in mobile finance initiatives, MobiWire and AHC see a future for the technology in other applications. Building on MobiWire’s NFC enabled COSY phone and AHC-developed application iConnect, the offering enables real-time communication and information transfer between care workers and office staff. For example, on arrival and departure at a resident’s location, care workers touch their handsets against NFC tags placed in the user’s home to “check-in” or “check out”. The information collected works to locate the remote worker with an arrival timestamp to update the bookings and manage service delivery and subsequent financial processes.

“The iConnect application is an excellent demonstration of the value of NFC as part of whole systems design. Remote workers simply “check-in” and trigger a set of processes allowing them to focus on the service they provide.  The next generation of NFC enabled devices will allow even more information to be displayed for the remote worker, surfacing patient details, diagnostics, even rich interactive media”, said Jerome Nadel, EVP of user experience and marketing at MobiWire.