Health management applications will not be limited to smartphones or smart homes. All objects in our lives will gradually become "smarter." Mobile phones can already manage vacuum cleaners and thermostats. Refrigerators can tweet, check Google calendars, download recipes, play tunes and alert us about food spoilage. Mirrors can monitor our weight and exercise. There is still more emphasis these days on technological wizardry than on actual benefits, but systems like Aurametrix are bringing it all together and generating valuable insights.
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Health is determined by many factors including Behavior (Physical Activity, Eating habits, Tobacco or substance abuse, responsible sexual choices), Mental Health, Injury and Violence, Environmental Quality, Preventative measures such as immunization, and Access to Health Care. Injuries are most likely to be perceived as "accidents" and "acts of fate", but they depend on the same determinants as other health factors: individual behavior, social and physical environment. The likelihood of injuries - unintentional ones and those caused by acts of violence - can be computed from physical location, gene-environment interactions, prior medical history, and physical traits. August 15, 2010: Predicting catastrophic health events "I've just picked up a fault in the AE35 unit. It's going to go 100% failure in 72 hours". These were famous words of the almighty computer HAL in "2001: A Space Odyssey". Few of us believe too much in software forecasts - be it weather, earthquakes or computer hard disk failures. Yet, we all know that sometimes it works. And such systems are very valuable, assuming they continuously improve.
The term telemedicine was coined in the 1970s by Thomas Bird although the origins of this technology - the remote communications with patients - date back to smoke signals in ancient times - when an orange glow across the nighttime sky was signalling an outbreak of an infectious disease. The first uses of telemedicine to transmit video, images, and complex medical data occurred in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In 1959, the University of Nebraska used interactive telemedicine to transmit neurological examinations, which is widely considered the first case of a real-time video telemedicine consultation. Earliest electroni devices included STARPAHC – a van staffed by two paramedics with a variety of medical instruments including electrocardiograph and x-ray. ATS-1, the first Applied Technology Satellite was in use in 1971-1975 to provide rural health care in Alaska. Minimal television system for remote diagnosis was developed in early 70s. Applications of telemedicine in early 2000s included remote consultation and diagnosis, specialty clinical care (anesthesia, dermatology, dentistry, cardiology, psychiatry, radiology, critical care, oncology, etc), patient education, home monitoring, and continuing education. Telemedicine became practicable at the end of the 1980s with the availability of low-cost computing and digital telecommunication (e.g. ISDN), but most of its applications failed to survive past the initial funding stage. The rise of the Internet in the 1990s also brought with it the information explosion and another attempt at Telemedicine, Telemedicine 2.0 The health care cost is rising each year, it’s already 16%-17% of the GDP. Wide utilization of wireless communications can reduce the health care cost by billions of dollars on an annual basis. Here are some examples of new developments. Cisco HealthPresence combines state-of-the-art video, audio, and medical information to create an environment similar to what most people experience when they visit their doctor or health specialist. First Cisco HealthPresence booth was installed in January 2008. Another California company, CardioNet provides the next-generation ambulatorycardiac monitoring service with beat-to-beat, real time analysis, automatic arrhythmia detection and wireless ECG transmission. A startup in Redwood city, CA, works on ingestible technology: microchip-enabled medications that provide patients with valuable information to customize their therapy. Proteus’s implantable ChipSkin™technology adds tiny active electronics to devices that use electrical energy to deliver therapy inside the body. Similar technologies are being proposed (like a medication reminder watch by a UCLA student and the MedTracker device) or are being developed. If you experience unpleasant gastrointestinal symptoms, such as abdominal pain, diarrhea, bleeding, anemia or GERD, you may be tested by capsule endoscopy with PillCam® family of products from Given Imaging. Vitamin-sized capsules with miniature video cameras inside will send pictures of your GI tract to a computer for your doctor to review. For GERD diagnosis, BRAVO pH monitoring system could be most useful. Swallowable devices such Radio pill can monitor players temperature. Researchers are planning larger volunteer testing events this year. This gadget is displaying your identification card, if you need it, but is also a Bluetooth headset device and has the features of other wireless headsets. With up to 40 hours of talk time on a full charge, the Smart Badge by Iqua is easy to carry and use, is stylish and smart. Its standby time is up to 600 hours, it vibrates to alert incoming calls silently during meetings and allows 3-way conference calls. It also has LED lights displaying Bluetooth connection, call status, and low battery indication. With supporting cell phones, this badge also allows for voice activated dialing. For full features and specification, you may find the Pdf of the product brochure here. |
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