With the socio-economic development and improvement of living standards, the development of "money-saving" and "preventive treatment of disease" medical projects, by which general public can enjoy personalized health care services at home such as professional and comfortable prevention, diagnosis, care and rehabilitation treatments, accords with the developmental trend of "3P Medicine" (Namely prediction, prevention and personalization). Under the dual-drive of national policies and social needs, home health care services is becoming the new favorite of future medical and health services industry. In addition to national universities and research institutions at home and abroad, many well-known enterprises from various industries such as GE, Johnson & Johnson, Philips, Roche Diagnostics, Bayer Health Group, Texas Instruments, Microsoft, Intel and so on have begun to pay more attention to future markets of disease management and elderly health care or fitness system; moreover, they put more family-use medical and health products on the Chinese markets. This article will concretely introduce the researches and applications of some home medical devices.

Furniture-based medical testing technology and equipment

In addition to portable physiological detector (such as blood pressure monitor, blood glucose meter and ECG monitor etc.) has stepped gradually into the ordinary families, high degree of integration of furniture and medical testing technologies will be one of the most significant features of future personalized home health care services. The research and development of furniture-based medical testing technology and equipment has already attracted interest of researchers in the world. For example, domestic low-load of mattress-type low-load sleep test equipment developed by Mr. Yu Mengsun et al in 2004, multifunctional toilet developed by Japanese researchers in 2007 which can detect blood pressure, body weight and other physiological parameters (Figure 1); bathtub with functions of heart rate detection and drowning-preventing (Figure 2); crib wireless monitoring system developed by U.S. University of Texas in 2007 which can prevent sudden infant death syndrome (Figure 3).

Figure 1 Toilet with functions of blood pressure and body weight detections	Figure 2 Bathtub with functions of heart rate detection and drowning-preventing	Figure 3 Crib wireless monitoring system

Clothing-based medical testing technology and equipment

Wearable medical testing technology and equipment which are mainly for military use before has come into ordinary people¡¯s life. For example, intelligent health-care-type shoes developed by several well-known sportswear manufacturers have already earned a plenty of loyal customers. Clothing-based medical device has also become a new research highlight, for instance, LifeShirt developed by U.S. VivoMetrics has been put into market (Figure 4), this medical device is very light (about 226.8g) and has a embedded sensors (it can detect heart function, vital capacity; record the patient¡¯s posture and physical activities); besides, it can be washed with washing machine; in addition, the shirt can continuously determine physiological data and realize the encryption and storage of the data, and thus be helpful for doctors to comprehensively consider the patient's subjective and objective information. A kind of BabyGlove developed by Berkeley branch school of University of California in 2007 can be used for infant home care. It can monitor baby¡¯s pulse rate and body temperature etc (Figure 5); BBA bootee developed by a number of French medical research institutions in 2007 can monitor blood oxygen (Figure 6).

Figure 4 LifeShirt	Figure 5 BabyGlove	Figure 6 BBA bootees

With the application of new textile materials, clothing-based medical testing technology and equipment will be more perfect in the near future. Nowadays, flexible PCB map can be printed on existing "smart textiles" which are composed of conductive fibers and ink. The clothing with ingredients of optical fiber sensor, switch and electrically activated fibers can detect body positions and postures. Embedded circuitry is normally arranged on the metal sheet of flexible bottom. On this kind of textile, by means of sewing, weaving and embroidery with silver-plated polyamide filament, different electronic components, transceivers and antennas can be connected each other. In addition, flexible low-power photovoltaic (PV) module is expected to become the power supply for smart clothes. In an indoor office environment, the efficiency of the power can generally reach 90%-95%. We believe that true clothing-based medical testing technology and equipment will be realized soon.

Accessories-based medical testing technology and equipment

Watch, ring, belt, toy and other accessories have been appropriate forms for researchers to develop portable physiological parameter detection equipment. For example, ring with function of blood pressure monitoring developed by U.S. Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2003 (Figure 7); GlucoBoy device used for the treatment of juvenile diabetes combined glucose determination and hand-held video games; toy ball (Diameter is no more than 5cm) developed by 3 researchers of laboratory in italy in 2007 (Figure 8), early diagnosis of abnormal neurological development of infants can be achieved by means of analyzing child¡¯s ball-grasping movement; SenseWear PRO armband developed by U.S. BodyMedia (Figure 9) can continuously recorded patient¡¯s physiological signals, lifestyle and physical activity data, and thus be helpful for clinical treatment of diabetes, obesity, lung disease, sleep and metabolic disorders etc. The most striking advantages of the monitor are as follows: it challenged the conventional understanding of cardiac electrophysiology and realized the function that ECG data can be obtained from a single part of body; moreover, it can ensure satisfactory test results of laboratory and patient¡¯s daily live.

Figure 7 Ring with function of blood pressure monitoring	Figure 8 Small balls with function of movement detectione	Figure 9 SenseWear PRO shoulder emblem

In addition, major brand mobile phone manufacturers have also seen the tremendous business opportunities in health services, so they developed in succession health-based mobile phones which aim at specific target groups. For instance, the world's first blood glucose meter phones LG KP8400 was put into market in 2004. It has a built-in sensor for the determination of blood glucose at the mobile phone battery, so when in use, blood glucose values can be accurately read out and the data can be uploaded to the online database after user dripping a drop of blood on the test strip and inserting the test strip into the sensor. Last year, At the St.Paul General Hospital in Brazil, some doctors made use of the mobile phone to calculate diabetic patient¡¯s postprandial blood glucose concentration and the required dose of insulin injection. Nano-silver antibacterial phone LG G232 can kill the residual bacteria on the surface of the mobile phone, which extends the value of healthy cell phone from the medical field to disease prevention and health care. Samsung mobile phones SPH-E330 can determine user¡¯s degree of obesity; Pantech & Curitel PH-S6500 and Nokia 5140 etc made by South Korea's can show user¡¯s walking distance and calories consumption. Jitterbug Co. specially developed a mobile phone with an alarm button for help for elderly users.

Web-based medical services

To provide effective, convenient and inexpensive personalized family health services, two main levels are related to the combination of various network technologies: one is the combination of physiological signal or environmental parameters detection and wireless sensor network. User¡¯s physiological signals, physical activity and other data can be collected automatically by means of a wireless sensor network at home, and even a comprehensive analysis of various parameters can be analyzed by medical artificial intelligence techniques. Once abnormal situation is detected, it can automatically trigger warning system such as emergency response etc. for example, infant drowning prevention system developed by Digital Human Research Center of Tokyo University of Technology in 2007; another is the combination of public health care system and remote network communication such as internet etc. by means of internet or GPRS etc, all kinds of relevant information detected by the system can be transmitted to physicians or health care providers so as to understand whether patients who have been treated with surgeries are getting well or need other assistances or not. For instance, in 2004, a 6-month RegPoint solution was carried out among 300-500 patients with hypertension and diabetes by Beijing Municipal Public Health Bureau, Motorola and Sweden MedDayAB Company. By means of a Motorola A760 mobile phone with software RegPoint, a two-way SMS communication between the mobile phone and RegPoint medical module at the hospital can be realized finally.