Review by Walt Mossberg @ WSJ of USB connectable Diabetes Meter

One of the areas I am interest in is easy to use medical measurement devices. Weight, blood pressure, temperature, glucose, pulse, breathing, sleep patterns are among the measurements that can be recorded as part of proactive medicine. These will let us Age In Place much more successfully.



Walt Mossberg has a review of a device that is a small first step toward easy to use and record products, the Bayer Contour USB blood glucose meter

A key piece that is missing from this device, is wireless upload, you have to connect it to your PC via USB. The technology in the area of low power wireless short range communication has really shot forward. I think any device that does not easily transfer its measurements wirelessly to a personal computer or some home health gateway is not useful enough to really jumpstart proactive medicine.

As Walt points out, the other major missing aspect of this device is it lack of ability to upload it's reading to one of the Personal Health Record systems, for example Microsoft HealthVault or Google Health. This is key so that a person's doctor and caregivers can have near real time information about these measurements.

So this is the right direction, just not enough of a step forward yet. Give Mr. Mossberg's text or video review read/listen.

I am excited about wireless devices that will help us live a much more healthy and happy total life.