M2MAPPS: eDevice is involved in products, solutions and services and you cover a lot of bases. Can you indicate your core competence? Where do you focus your activities?

MARC BERREBI: The company is focused on health care, where we’re involved in every link in the value chain. Historically our core competence is based on the development of low-cost, very-efficient software stacks that enable connectivity to the Internet. The software can therefore operate in devices having minimal computing resources. And low cost is very important because healthcare needs to become a high-volume sector in order to optimize the benefits.

M2MAPPS: Could you say a few words about your products?

MARC BERREBI: We don’t market healthcare devices under our own brand. We work with market leaders like Honeywell, Medtronic and Philips: our products enable wireless connectivity and mobility. For example, a PSTN/POTS to cellular gateway; a compact GSM/GPRS modem; and a ready-for-integration 3G/GSM/GPRS module. To date more than 3 million devices that employ our embedded technology have been deployed. We also market a services and logistics portal.

M2MAPPS: The sociological case for ehealth would seem to be overwhelming, nevertheless there is resistance within the healthcare industry, one issue being standards. Can your summarize the current environment?

MARC BERREBI: The eHealth is going to grow and grow for the next 20 years, but right now Europe is in the slow lane. Action is needed, something you covered in a recent interview with Bilel Jamousse of the ITU. In the US de facto standards are often set in the marketplace and that is the situation with eHealth. That’s where the leading manufacturers are located and de jure standards are not going to impact on their business in the near- or medium-term. They currently have around 90% of the worldwide market for pacemakers. Asia, on the other hand, is very active on the standards front, which they see as being the entry point into the market for devices. Right now Europe doesn’t have a clear strategy.

M2MAPPS: You’re painting a somewhat negative scenario.

MARC BERREBI: That is the current situation in Europe but of course standards are being defined, albeit slowly, and they will be implemented globally. Standards facilitate competition and that brings prices down and they also enable interoperability. I anticipate being able to paint a more positive scenario in say two to three years.

M2MAPPS: What about the business case. Can the cost of remote healthcare monitoring be justified financially? Can ROIs be determined?

MARC BERREBI: The cost can be justified but until we have a lot more data it is going to be hard to quantify ROIs. It’s clear that deploying devices that detect problems at an early stage and thereby minimize the cost of treatment in clinics and hospitals represents a good investment. And there are other areas where there is a tangible financial benefit. In the US, where there are serious health issues associated with obesity, and where operations are significantly more expensive than in Europe, there are 60-day warranty agreements. If something goes wrong within that time period and the patient is readmitted then there is no charge: if it comes later then the patient’s insurance company has to foot the bill. This means that hospitals and clinics are promoting the deployment of ehealth solutions in order to protect their bottom line.

M2MAPPS: Do we need more trials that are closely monitored and analyzed in order to drive legislation and deployments forward?

MARC BERREBI: We can do trials forever. I think that we now have enough evidence to go forward. It was not the case 10 years ago when eDevice pioneered this activity. Right now we are monitoring the information that is being generated from over 100,000 homes in around 130 countries. This is a real-world process: it’s not a trial, and the real-world data that it is generating is being analyzed in order to produce quantifiable benefits.

M2MAPPS: What developments do you expect to see in future?

MARC BERREBI: I’ve talked about standards, which will accelerate growth and underpin the business case. But I also expect to see more specialization; more recognition of the fact that a network service that is used for say fleet management or utility meter reading is not optimum when it comes to the delivery for important, real-time medical data. The huge growth in m2m devices, apps and services is going to result in application-centric services, for example, guaranteed delivery of ehealth data coming from pacemakers, glucometers, and blood-pressure monitors. With people living longer, I also expect to see more patients who travel wanting to access their remote patient monitoring services when on vacation or on a business trip. This will boost the number of wirelessly connected medical devices. It will require high-quality roaming management systems because patients will want to have the same level of service when they are away from home. And it will also allow location-based medical services to be offered in future.