As the West Wireless Health Institute prepares to open for business next month in San Diego, Qualcomm Inc.’s initiatives to develop a mobile healthcare ecosystem are becoming more tangible, starting with a physical building where scientists, doctors and engineers can work to prove the clinical benefits of using wireless connectivity to improve healthcare.
The institute, started by Qualcomm, Scripps Health and philanthropers Gary and Mary West, is a medical research organization that focuses on driving wireless into healthcare. To date, $45 million has been publicly committed to the institute from the West family, but the actual number is much higher, said Don Jones, who is leading Qualcomm’s efforts in the space as VP of Health & Life Sciences at the company. The institute just hired Mehran Mehregany as executive VP of engineering and chief of engineering research. Mehregany is a leader in MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) research; the institute is in the process of hiring post-doctoral researchers to study using sensor technologies in healthcare.
Thus, Qualcomm is seeing progress on an initiative started seven years ago and highlighted during April’s CTIA Wireless 2009 show in Las Vegas. “We’re taking a very long-term approach” to integrating wireless into the healthcare industry. “They have to see the value in that connectivity, which we think is collapsing space and time,” Jones said.
Big-picture organizations
As such, Qualcomm has a vested role in building the ecosystem. Beyond the WWHI, the company is working with four large organizations to develop the mobile healthcare ecosystem.
