Orange Business Services and Weinmann develop homecareONLINE, an end-to-end telemedicine solution for sleep apnea patients

Paris and Hamburg

Solution improves health care services for sleep apnea patients, satisfies new compliance requirements, and enables assessment of patients’ conditions and disorder treatment at home

In close cooperation, Orange Business Services and Weinmann, a global manufacturer of therapeutic system solutions in sleep medicine and ventilation, have developed homecareONLINE, a fully-integrated, end-to-end connected medical device solution for sleep therapy. This solution will be first commercialized in France starting October 2013.
Sleep apnea effects can be improved by CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) devices prescribed by healthcare professionals. With homeCareONLINE, clinically useful data is collected from patients through Weinmann CPAP devices in strict compliance with e-health regulations and international data protection guidelines. Data is hosted on “Flexible Computing Santé,” Orange Business Services’ infrastructure as a service solution dedicated to medical data. The data, including graphical representations, is available through a secure application to registered users and official healthcare system representatives.

homecareONLINE supports homecare providers to improve their patient care and working processes as well as to optimize patient reimbursement. It provides the opportunity to homecare providers to get close to their patients without travelling and also fulfills the latest regulatory requirements. Indeed, an increasing number of governments and public health systems are requiring that medical equipment manufacturers such as Weinmann include remote monitoring capability for the therapy device in order to be covered by medical insurance or for reimbursement.

Sleep apnea is a serious sleep-related respiratory disorder which causes daytime sleepiness possibly leading to road accidents, but also impairs the cardio-vascular system, being an important risk factor for myocardial infarction and stroke.

In order to meet Weinmann’s targeted market launch, Orange Business Services helped to develop homecareONLINE in six months relying on its wide expertise in both machine-to-machine (M2M) solutions and e-health. The solution is based on a communication module integrated into Weinmann CPAP devices which sends device usage and clinical data information via the secure Orange network to a “Connected Health Center”. This cloud platform enables the seamless, automatic and secure flow of data from patients to care providers who can access them via a secure Web portal. The efficient development of the solution was also permitted by Intelligent Apps Enabler, Orange Business Services’ platform to develop M2M applications.

Dr. Karl-Andreas Feldhahn, CTO at Weinmann, said: “We chose Orange Business Services as our partner for this solution for several reasons. Orange is the only service provider that could rollout a cloud-based platform that is scalable and flexible. With Orange, we just have one partner for all tasks – SIM connection, application development and integration, hosting services as well as service management – all on a one-stop-shop basis. Orange Business Services’ global presence and reach enabling uniform e-health services across countries is a critical factor for us, allowing us to make available scalable monitoring services for our medical equipment via a secure, private network to our customers in many countries.”

“In only six months and thanks to an excellent, intense cooperation with the customer, we implemented with Weinmann a very innovative M2M solution that is exemplary for many other M2M healthcare applications,” said Dr. Helmut Reisinger, senior vice president for Europe, Russia and CIS, Orange Business Services. ”With an increasing drive to enhance patients’ healthcare, manage related costs and meet emerging regulations, market leaders like Weinmann have assumed a pioneering role in M2M healthcare applications. Orange is pleased that we could contribute our M2M and healthcare expertise in order to create an innovative solution for Weinmann that will be used at the global level"

About Orange Business Services

Orange Business Services, the Orange branch dedicated to B2B services, is a leading global integrator of communications solutions for multinational corporations. With the world’s largest, seamless network for voice and data, Orange Business Services reaches 220 countries and territories with local support in 166. Offering a comprehensive package of communication services covering cloud computing, enterprise mobility, M2M, security, unified communications, videoconferencing, and broadband, Orange Business Services delivers a best-in-class customer experience across a global landscape. Thousands of enterprise customers and 1.4 million mobile data users rely on an Orange Business Services international platform for communicating and conducting business. Orange Business Services was awarded three of the telecom industry’s highest accolades at the annual World Communication Awards 2012 – Best Global Operator, Best Cloud Service and the User’s Choice Award. Orange Business Services is a five-time winner of Best Global Operator. Learn more at www.orange-business.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook.
Orange is one of the world’s leading telecommunications operators with annual sales of €43.5 billion in 2012 and has 168,000 employees worldwide at June 30, 2013. Orange is listed on the NYSE Euronext Paris (symbol ORA) and on the New York Stock Exchange (symbol ORAN).


About Weinmann

Weinmann develops, produces and markets therapeutic system solutions for ventilation and sleep medicine in 55 countries through subsidiaries in St. Petersburg, Paris-Igny, Shanghai and Neuenhof near Zurich; representative offices in Singapore and Venezuela; and partners in many other key markets.
Founded in 1874 by Gottlieb Weinmann as a precision mechanics company in Ludwigshafen, Weinmann initially concentrated on the production of fine mechanical fittings for oxygen devices. The expansion of the medical technology product palette came when Karl and Vera Feldhahn assumed control of the company and Dr. Joachim Griefahn joined the business at the end of the 1960s. Innovations such as the emergency case Quick-O2-Med, the ULM CASE for first aid treatment of emergency patients and the MEDUMAT ventilator with portable system made their mark in emergency medicine. In 1977 the company moved to current company headquarters in Hamburg-Stellingen.
At the end of the 1980s Weinmann expanded its fields of business to include the home care segment. The company was the first German manufacturer to produce a CPAP device for the treatment of sleep disorders.
Several ground-breaking medical products followed, including expansion of the SOMNO, VENTI and JOYCE product lines in Homecare and growth of the MEDUMAT respirator family in Emergency. In mid-2013 Weinmann split into two independent companies. Weinmann Homecare focuses on ventilation and sleep medicine while WEINMANN Emergency concentrates on emergency medical systems solutions. Learn more at www.weinmann.de .
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