The last decade has witnessed a rapid surge of interest in new sensing and monitoring devices for healthcare. One key development in this area is implantable in vivo monitoring and intervention devices. While the problem of long-term stability and biocompatibility is being addressed, several promising clinical prototypes are starting to emerge. For example, in the case of managing patients with acute diabetes, the blood glucose level can be monitored continuously in vivo, which controls the insulin delivery from an implanted reservoir. For the treatment of epilepsy and other debilitating neurological disorders, there are already on the market implantable, multiprogrammable brain stimulators which save the patient from surgical operations of removing brain tissue. In cardiology, the value of implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICD) has increasingly been recognized for the effective prevention of sudden cardiac death (SCD). In Europe 900,000 patients die suddenly each year and about ninety percent of these deaths are caused by an arrhythmogenic event. Disturbingly, many arrhythmogenic deaths could be prevented if ICD implantation had been made available when the risk of SCD was identified. It is possible to envisage a large percentage of the population having permanent implants which would provide continuous monitoring of the most important physiological parameters for identifying the precursors of major adverse cardiac events including sudden death. Such technological development echoes the social, industrial, and clinical perspectives of future healthcare delivery.

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