Has Bluetooth already won the race to wirelessly connect medical devices?

Currently, Bluetooth’s Health Device Profile is the only wireless technology specification that the interoperability group Continua Health Alliance has included in its guidelines, however, last month the Alliance met in Spain to begin the process of deciding which other wireless technologies should be included. The group has yet to announce its decision.

If it were up to Nick Hunn, Vice Chairman at the Mobile Data Association and CEO of WiFore, chances are Bluetooth Low Energy would be the technology that Continua picks: Hunn’s recently released report on Bluetooth’s dominance in the wireless medical devices sector extols the many virtues of Bluetooth and explains in great detail the technology’s many successes in the medical industry.

“To achieve success eHealth needs a critical mass of devices,” Hunn writes. “Today there are just over 3 billion Bluetooth devices in existence. In 2011, there will be more Bluetooth devices than people. From the start of 2010, mobile phones will incorporate chips which support standard Bluetooth as well as low energy Bluetooth. No other wireless technology can begin to emulate this.”

Hunn seems to be pitching Continua at one point in his report — an effort to convince the Alliance that Bluetooth Low Energy is the necessary pick for their other wireless health services guidelines: “The ability of the new generation of Bluetooth chips to support any Bluetooth medical device gives designers of mobile phones, PCs, Gateways and home medical hubs unrivalled power to build devices that can talk to any personal Bluetooth medical device,” Hunn writes. “The twin standards of Bluetooth low energy and Bluetooth cover the full diversity of products that range from simple sensors in Assisted Living (which need battery lives of many years), to complex monitors that stream waveform data.”

More here.