SPOTLIGHT: Consumers and mobile healthcare

The immediate future of mobile healthcare seems to lie in home-based monitoring. A Harris Interactive poll released at last week's CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment symposium indicates that 68 percent of consumers like the idea of mobile technologies enabling home care. Among the 3,000 people surveyed, 40 percent of consumers are interested in mobile healthcare as a supplement to regular physician care, while 23 percent would consider mobile technologies as a way to reduce trips to the doctor. And almost 20 percent of respondents would upgrade their current cell phone's data plan to take advantage of new mobile health technologies. FierceWireless