On innovation, quality of life and technology of BodyNets

Technology innovation is the key to enhancing the quality of life for everyone in the continuum of life from newborns to senior citizens. Management innovation has been the fuel that has been sustaining the technology innovation engine. Thus, together, management innovation and technology innovation have the potential to rapidly transform information processing, especially in healthcare, by successfully addressing the key challenges of access, quality and cost of care. In this presentation, we will define the healthcare continuum and examine the roles of human as an information node and BodyNets as the enabling technology to bring about this transformation. We will discuss recent developments in the area of personalized sensor networks. Finally, we will identify the challenges and opportunities to realize the vision of pervasive and personalized mobile information processing for applications ranging from healthcare to entertainment.