German incumbent Deutsche Telekom has announced two new services that target differing ends of the health market. It is working with Lahn-Dill Hospitals and Dutch IT provider Portavita on a project that utilizes mobile health technology to support the most seriously ill patients.  Separately it will launch a new online health and fitness assessment service with wireless platform Quentiq.

The project with Lahn-Dill Hospitals will take place in the Gießen-Wetzlar region of German state Hesse and is Deutsche Telekom’s first pilot project in the palliative care field. Healthcare professionals in the pilot including physicians and care staff have until now had to exchange treatment details by paper or fax. Documentation obligations and high levels of organisation mean patients have generally been treated in hospital. But seriously ill patients actually prefer to be treated at home and since 2007 have had this legal right under German law.

As part of the pilot project, physicians and care staff will share patient records electronically using tablet PCs while they are on the move or from a patient’s bedside. Portavita’s speciality is in electronic medical records. Deutsche Telekom will provide the secure networking and mobile devices for the project which will also involve Witten-Herdecke University as a research partner. The partners announced the pilot at the Medica medical trade fair in Dusseldorf.

The German operator's other new project is to work with Swiss company Quentiq on a new online health and fitness assessment service that will launch early next year. The service will monitor users' vital signs via an app and smartphone or any medical device such as a digital scale or blood pressure monitor so long as it is networked. The service will produce a personalised scorecard for users based on their physical activity, stress, diet and sleeping habits.

The two projects are Deutsche Telekom’s latest forays into mobile health, an area in which it has a growing interest.  It announced a service in the state of Brandenburg one month ago in which it will monitor high-risk heart patients in their homes. It also recently started selling mobile health devices in its own stores in Germany.