Capabilities of proprietary intermediate telehealth devices.

OBJECTIVE: Proprietary intermediate telehealth devices are those which are specifically designed as connectors between the entities of telehealth systems. This article seeks to understand what are the capabilities of such devices and then to investigate how these are clustered on the current generation of devices.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: Fourteen current-generation devices available from 12 device providers were selected and analyzed. Four categories of questions were composed to evaluate the devices: setup/configuration, available features, inputs, and outputs.

RESULTS: Data were collected and synthesized on the following capabilities: availability from suppliers, setup, environments of use, multiple-condition monitoring, multiuser capabilities, prompts, reminders and alerts, interaction with the health professional, access to historical data, device inputs, and their transfer technology.

CONCLUSIONS: There are three main roles for proprietary intermediate devices in telehealth systems: displaying information to the patient; receiving data manually/automatically; forwarding results and questionnaire responses to another entity. Provider Perspective: Intermediate devices are usually part of closed proprietary systems. Providers produce disease-customisable devices. Connectivity is considerably ahead of the current generation of point-of-care devices. However, little data are available on connection to rest of the proprietary system. Patient Perspective: It shows clear benefit that one intermediate device can be potentially used with several chronic conditions. Simple setup, authentication procedures, and automatic data transfer are key design aspects. Health Professional Perspective: Little direct interaction with the health professional was observed. Payer Perspective: Details of costs of devices are generally unavailable; system providers indicate that cost variability is based on "user requirements."