Ford to demonstrate new in-car health tech

Ford Motor Company is ready to demonstrate its new in-car health monitoring systems at this week's Wireless Health 2011 conference in California.

Researchers said in a statement that they've created the glucose monitoring, allergy notification, and diabetes and asthma coaching apps they promised earlier this spring. The systems are integrated in the company's Sync vehicle.

  • Glucose monitoring: Ford and Medtronic will show off their new prototype of a glucose monitoring system that continuously monitors the driver's glucose levels, displays the data on the dashboard, and alerts the driver when glucose levels are out of bounds.
  • Allergy apps. Working with SDI Health and www.pollen.com, Ford officials say they're ready to demonstrate the voice-activated allergy system, which reports on local pollen levels and other allergy triggers, as well as providing four-day forecasts.
  • Asthma and diabetes coaching. WellDoc's system is ready for demo as well, providing asthmatic and diabetic drivers with voice-activated access to medication reminders and other health information.

The systems use Bluetooth to connect drivers to cloud-based Internet services, and to allow voice-activation and control for drivers.

Not quite ready for prime time apparently, is the heart-rate monitoring system that WellDoc president and COO Anand Iyer told FierceMobileHealthcare about in May. Iyer projected the system could one day alert a driver to an incipient heart attack, but the technology doesn't appear quite there yet.

To learn more:
- read the press release