Researchers are beginning to understand how mobile phones can cut costs, help solve rural health-care problems, and even reduce medical errors
Bioengineering professor Boris Rubinsky has what he hopes is the perfect antidote to bulky, expensive, hard-to-use medical machines: the mobile phone.
The University of California professor says that by reducing a complex electromagnetic imaging machine to a portable electromagnetic scanner that can work in tandem with a regular cell phone and a computer, he has essentially replicated a $10,000 piece of equipment for just hundreds of dollars. The mobile scanner plugs into the phone, which beams the data to the computer, generating an image that can be transmitted to a doctor or hospital far away.
Despite all the advances in medical diagnostics, two-thirds of the world's population has no access to imaging technologies. Worse, about half of the imaging equipment sent to developing countries goes unused because local technicians aren't trained to operate it or lack spare parts, according to the World Health Organization. But thanks to the proliferation of cellular and other wireless networks, researchers are stepping up efforts to deliver crucial medical services from afar. "You go through India, anywhere, in the middle of the road, there's someone with a cell phone. A friend calls me from the jungles of Costa Rica," says Rubinsky. "I can see so many applications in which the cell phone becomes an integral part of a medical device. A cell phone can cut the cost of almost every [diagnostic] device."
From Ultrasounds to Heart Monitors
Rubinsky is hardly the only medical researcher who sees this potential. Indeed, of some 30 health-care-related projects at various universities recently funded by Microsoft (MSFT) Research, 17 involve cell phones. One team, at Washington University in St. Louis, is attempting to take ultrasound readings using a cell phone and a TV. Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh are working to create a heart monitor that relies on a cell phone to analyze the readings and dial 911 whenever a person's cardiac activity careens into dangerous territory, providing emergency responders with a location and a preliminary diagnosis. "The cell phone is going to solve rural health-care problems, whether it's rural India or rural Indiana," says Kristin Tolle, Microsoft Research's program manager for external research in biomedical computing.
Cell phones may also help reduce the frequency of medical errors. Researchers at startup Gentag have developed disposable wireless Band-Aids containing radio frequency identification (RFID) chips that transmit key information to a cell phone. As a nurse is about to administer a drug, the Band-Aid may warn that the patient is allergic to it. The Band-Aids, expected to be introduced commercially in Europe this summer, can also enable a phone to monitor a patient's temperature or glucose levels, alerting a nurse if there's a spike. ...
| • | Medical Advances -- Through Your iPhone?
BusinessWeek.com, Wednesday, April 30, 2008 Byline: Olga Kharif, senior writer |
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