How Portable Medical Scanners Could Change the World
Will this change the world?
Imagine a portable hand held device that you could use to check all the main issues that you would normally need a to see a doctor to check. (i.e. accurate medical diagnosis)
The health benefits, cost savings and time savings would be enormous. Not to mention the number of lives that could be saved.
The possibility will be being able to get basic diagnosis and medical advice at home quickly and possibly even without having to visit a doctor or hospital.
Star Trek first showed the world what this could be like (first as far as I know anyway) with a “Tricorder“.
Modern computing systems and miniaturisation of the required components have advanced significantly since a Tricorder was first shown in Star Trek. The supporting technology has now advanced far enough that consumer level models could soon be available and affordable.
In fact, the potential benefits to society were deemed so significant that the X Prize Foundation launched a competition starting 2012 to have a medical tricorder developed, with 34 teams competing up to 2017 for the US$10 million prize. One finalist believed the final product could help 90% of the cases that go to the emergency room
The two finalists of the X Prize Foundation content didn’t quite meet all the conditions to win the prize outright, but their advances brought us a lot closer to having these Tricorder like devices available.
The reality is bringing multiple technologies that are already available together, and shrinking it and making it cheaply enough to be available to consumers.
Some of the health conditions and measurements being checked in some devices are:
- Anemia
- Atrial fibrilation
- Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
- Diabetes
- Leukocytosis
- Pneumonia
- Otisis Media
- Sleep Apnea
- Urinary tract infection
- Blood pressure
- Heart rate
- Oxygen Saturation
- Respiratory rate
- Temperature
Basil Leaf Technologies (one of the prize winners, formerly called Final Frontier Medical Devices) developed a device called DxtER as an outcome of the competition
A Medical Tricorder is already possible, the size and cost is just not quite there yet for general consumers.
Positives
Negatives
What other positive or negative outcomes do you think may come once practical and affordable portable medical scanners (medical tricorders) become available to consumers?
