Healthcare is a multi-faceted arena where technology can be used effectively in a number of sectors including public and private healthcare providers, health insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry.

Ericsson is developing complete solutions to enable healthcare providers to improve efficiency and reduce costs without compromising the quality of patient care.

Ericsson Mobile Monitoring for healthcare will be launched commercially in November this year. The system allows doctors to assess patients' health while they are on the move, reducing the need for routine check-ups and letting patients lead more normal lives.

The lightweight monitoring unit is customized to the needs of individual patients and allows a variety of body data, such as blood pressure and pulse rate, to be transmitted wirelessly to doctors and health professionals.

The Ericsson system has been developed over the course of two European Union-funded projects. The research project MobiHealth, which began in 2002, included the first trials of a mobile monitoring system developed jointly by Ericsson and the University of Twente in the Netherlands.

Business developer Philip Herrmann, who works with healthcare solutions at Ericsson, says the main focus of the initial trial was to ensure the solution was technically workable, had a stable connection and included sufficient bandwidth.

"We discussed the possibility of building our own product based on the MobiHealth system and for commercial reasons decided to build a completely new product," Herrmann says.

Following the successful conclusion of trials in four European hospitals, a follow-up initiative was launched in February this year.

The result of a further partnership between Ericsson and the University of Twente HealthService 24 is a market-deployment project using the new Ericsson Mobile Monitoring system.

Cardiac patients, high-risk pregnant women, chronically ill patients and those with respiratory conditions have been the main patient groups to benefit so far from the monitoring system.

Mobile monitoring can reduce the cost of treatment primarily by reducing the number of hospital visits and allowing patients to be discharged from hospital sooner.

With the imminent commercial launch of Ericsson Mobile Monitoring, the move is on to mobilize patients and encourage hospitals and other healthcare providers to do their own calculations and invest.

It is estimated that 5 percent of the total European health budget is spent on e-health and figures suggest that about 10-15 percent of the e-health budget could be spent on mobile monitoring systems.