Vodafone has announced an agreement with Boston Scientific, the US manufacturer of medical devices, to develop remote health monitoring solutions. Such solutions provide doctors with real-time data from patients who are situated remotely. Vodafone says its M2M technology will allow patients to send their data via mobile devices to doctors without leaving home. The M2M element is supplied by Vodafone Global Enterprise which manages the mobile operator’s multinational customers.

The partners did not supply a launch date for the new solution. Nor did they say which geographic market it is destined for although the announcement quotes  Boston Scientific’s SVP and president  for Europe, Middle East and Africa, implying a launch first in that particular region.

Increasingly mobile operators want to leverage their cellular connectivity by offering M2M solutions to the healthcare industry. Most recently Orange announced it will supply M2M connectivity to US vendor Qualcomm in Europe. Qualcomm is not a device vendor unlike Boston Scientific although it plans to launch a platform in Europe that collects data from medical devices. Another slight difference between the two scenarios is Vodafone/Boston Scientific have set up a partnership whereas Orange is acting as a supplier to Qualcomm.