Apparatus and method for providing improved health care

A system for acquiring physiological data from a patient, the system comprising:

• an adapter for releasably mounting to a smartphone;
• a sensor module for releasably mounting to the adapter, the sensor module comprising a gyroscope, an accelerometer and at least one physiological sensor for acquiring physiological data from the patient;
• and
• a software app running on a smartphone for (i) using data acquired from the gyroscope, the accelerometer and the physiological sensor to confirm that the sensor module is in the correct orientation for acquiring physiological data from the patient, (ii) prompting a user to change at least one of the orientation of the sensor module and the orientation of the user when the sensor module is not in the correct orientation, (iii) wirelessly controlling operation of the sensor module and wirelessly receiving the physiological data from the sensor module, and (iv) wirelessly communicating the physiological data acquired from the patient to a remote location.

A method for acquiring physiological data from a patient, the method comprising:

• providing a system comprising:
• an adapter for releasably mounting to a smartphone;
• a sensor module for releasably mounting to the adapter, the sensor module comprising a gyroscope, an accelerometer and at least one physiological sensor for acquiring physiological data from the patient;
• and
• a software app running on the smartphone for (i) using data acquired from the gyroscope, the accelerometer and the physiological sensor to confirm that the sensor module is in the correct orientation for acquiring physiological data from the patient, (ii) prompting a user to change at least one of the orientation of the sensor module and the orientation of the user when the sensor module is not in the correct orientation, (iii) wirelessly controlling operation of the sensor module and wirelessly receiving the physiological data from the sensor module, and (iv) wirelessly communicating the physiological data acquired from the patient to a remote location;
• using the software app to control operation of the sensor module so as to acquire physiological data from the patient and transfer the physiological data from the sensor module to the smartphone.