Long before cell phones and sophisticated pagers, physicians relied on beepers for mobile communications. Now, with cellular phones, wireless Internet technology, and remote sensing devices, doctors have the potential to monitor patients and access their health care records from most places around the world.

Already, many patients are monitored by telemedicine technology that uses a landline telephone to transmit blood pressure, heart rate and glucose levels to computers monitored by health professionals. In years to come, these vital signs and others, including our sleep patterns, could be measured with the data transmitted by wireless devices.

The renowned Cleveland Clinic is testing a new pacemaker network that will allow patients to send data from their pacemakers to their doctors using either a computer with an Internet connection or a telephone. Also, a wireless Internet entrepreneur working with sensors is developing software that could measure body temperature or evaluate a woman’s ovulation cycle using a cellular phone.

Such wireless sensor networks could revolutionize health care with low-cost, non-invasive health monitoring. Instead of current, cumbersome personal monitors that only collect data, these new miniature, lightweight and intelligent sensor networks could be integrated into wearable units for long-term, unobtrusive health monitoring with instantaneous feedback. Instead of focusing on illness, we could focus on wellness through prevention and early detection of disease.

Although the technology is impressive, the greatest potential impact is its ability to help reduce minority health disparities by increasing access to health care services. According to the Telehealth Improvement Act of 2004, 36 million people in the United States lack direct access to physicians.

We know from our 2003 study, “Dying Before Their Time,” that in low-income, urban areas, many residents go without health care until there is an emergency. Many are without health insurance, transportation or both. For this population in particular, remote health monitoring can provide needed access to care, unless the “digital divide” creates more barriers. The digital divide was coined in the 1990s and refers to the gap between those with effective access to digital and information technology and those without access to it.

One Atlanta-based nonprofit organization, the Alliance for Digital Equality, is focused on access to Internet technology in minority communities. The Alliance was created to ensure that broadband Internet technology remains affordable, is used responsibly and allows all Americans to benefit from its cutting-edge applications, particularly in health care and education.

Earlier this month, the Alliance launched the Detroit Digital Empowerment Council to examine the impact of broadband on the Detroit community.

According to the alliance chairman, Julius H. Hollis, “It is the goal of the Alliance to become the voice of underserved communities and to ensure that broadband remains affordable so that the newest online users have continued access and that the last ones on aren’t the first ones off.”

The mission of the Alliance for Digital Equality is to empower communities across the digital divide, bringing together elected officials, consumers and the business community to educate minority communities about the importance and benefits of broadband usage. For the Alliance, this also means African Americans and other minorities must be involved when legislative and regulatory policies are drafted and approved.

Through the Detroit Digital Empowerment Council, I hope we will learn how new technologies can impact and empower us in our daily lives, here in Detroit. And I hope we can put our days of mistrusting technology behind us. It is time to use this technology and prepare for new careers and opportunities made possible by wireless Internet technologies, time to bridge the digital divide, once and for all.

Tune in to “The Senior Solution” on WGPR 107.5FM every Saturday morning at 10 a.m., hosted by Paul Bridgewater, president and CEO of Detroit Area Agency on Aging.