By Roland Piquepaille
These days, the European Space Agency (ESA) is busy sharing its space technologies. Last week, in "Space technology hits the slopes," it said that the ski maker Rossignol hopes to beat the world speed skiing record of 250 km/h by using skis stabilized by a mechanism developed for ESA's Rosetta spacecraft. And today, the ESA announced that a satellite-based Health Monitoring Kit developed by the Canadian company March Networks and co-funded by ESA, will help climbers to escalate the Everest.The climb to the almost 9000 metre summit has claimed the lives of about one hundred people. The March Networks technology will transmit blood oxygen levels (SpO2), heart rates, blood pressure and body temperatures of the climbers. The recorded data will be stored on Bluetooth-enabled PDA's and ultimately transmitted via satellite to a Canadian-hosted website
The light-weight, portable March Networks Health Monitoring Kit is fully equipped with the necessary medical devices, and can operate independently of its companion Video Services Gateway and videoconferencing cameras, which are typically used in home-based telehealth applications for remote nursing visits.
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The March Networks Health Monitoring Kit can transmit blood oxygen levels (SpO2), heart rates, blood pressure and body temperatures. The recorded data is stored on Bluetooth-enabled PDA's and ultimately transmitted via satellite to a Canadian-hosted website (Credit: March Networks). |
Of course, this kind of technology can be applied at lower altitudes.
The technology assisting the group during the climb is based on an ESA co-funded project from March Networks and Telesat of Canada. They worked together to develop the highly successful TeLeCare project. This is a tele-medicine project allowing 'remote patient diagnosis and monitoring' via satellite. With the system, a nurse can video-conference with a patient anywhere within the satellite's transmission coverage.
For more information, you can read this press release, "March Networks Telehealth Technology Climbs to New Heights" or visit this site about managed telehealth solutions.
Sources: European Space Agency, April 15, 2004; March Networks website
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