Wearable Tech and Medical Health:
We are currently exploring the idea of creating medical websites that will fit on the latest generation of devices: wearable tech. People use devices like the iWatch for lots of health-related reasons, whether it’s monitoring your heart rate or the amount of steps taken throughout the day. We used a promo code for an iWatch development course, and our company will evaluate the results as they come in. If you will be setting up a website to promote your app (you should!) here is a website to save money for British webmasters.
Apps For Local Medical Services?
Siri, checking Google’s search results, comes up with your medical clinic. She makes her way there, and your office saves her life.
Indeed that’s what Apple is betting for the future of Apple’s iWatch. They have hired dozens of health-tech experts from around the world to find ways of making the iWatch a virtual health assistant.
But What Can the Apple iWatch Really Do?
Anyone who has medical tests done to them in the past 30 years likely knows what an EKG, Ultrasound, or MRI machine looks like. With the exception of an MRI, these machines tend to look like dinosaurs from the 1970’s. When you step into a hospital, your smartphone likely has more computing power than the devices they use to tests and diagnostics.
The field seems ripe for disruption. But what can a consumer device really hope to accomplish in the consumer field?
As it stands, the device can’t take blood samples, urine samples, or emit ultrasounds or X-rays (nor should the device have these capabilities).
Then there’s also the problem of patients diagnosing themselves. The virtual health assistant, in addition to have the technology to run tests, should also have an artificial intelligence that’s capable of assessing these tests accurately before giving information to the patient.
Perhaps it shouldn’t even give a diagnosis, but instead send information to your medical professional.
A Benefit For Society As A Whole:
One great benefit of these devices, again if they existed, would be that health professionals could identify a viral outbreak much faster and quicker. Imagine an Apple iWatch detecting Ebola in its owner, and alerting the CDC immediately. We could identify patient zero just as quickly as identifying the outbreak in the first place.
Existing Medical Tech Will Change:
While you definitely won’t see X-Rays on consumer devices for obvious health reasons, there may come a time when it will become obsolete in the first place. Sensors on smartphones are becoming so powerful that they can detect heart-rate just from studying your skin. How long before these sensors become so powerful that they can use your home wifi signals (which pass right through you) to identify bone breaks, muscle pulls and other ailments?
Recently scientists have discovered a way to collect blood from a person without breaking the skin. The scientists were inspired by the technology behind mosquitoes, which can draw blood without making you bleed. Imagine this tech in your iWatch: they could draw a drop of blood each morning, run tests, and alert you to any problems (your blood pressure is running high, cut back on sodium”, or “you are at high risk for a heart attack today, seek medical help immediately”).
As long as the medical technology is smart enough not to create false alarms with their owners, this could be an incredibly valuable and even life-saving tools for millions of Americans.
