CIOIN

Ford Motors is collaborating with Microsoft, Healthrageous and BlueMetal Architects to bring health monitoring into cars, an effort that signals the company’s intent to move away from the in-vehicle “infotainment” systems some auto makers announced at CES (consumer electronics show).
Many people suffer from chronic health conditions—far more, in fact, than are involved in serious automobile accidents during their driving careers. And not monitoring chronic health conditions, such as diabetes, can actually be a driving hazard.
“Think about what happens when someone with diabetes goes into hypoglycemic shock,” said Gary Strumolo, manager-infotainment, interiors, health and wellness, Ford. “They get dizzy, they’re confused, their vision is blurred—it’s a bad situation. But if your car can monitor your diabetes for you, and prompt you to get food when your blood sugar is dropping, you can avoid this situation.”
Ford showed off a prototype of this future health system. It will be able to capture biometric data from devices such as pacemakers and glucose monitors, and will also be able to accept voice input from the driver. For example, the driver can tell the system what pills he or she has taken so far. The system will then upload this data to the HealthVault cloud provided by Microsoft, and transferred to Windows Azure to be processed with other health data. Once the driver leaves the vehicle, they’ll be able to access graphs and reports based on this data.