At CTIA Wireless 2010 last week, the newest and coolest mobile products and services were on display. There were lots of interesting ones, including many amazing mHealth applications.
Here’s a look at some innovative apps:
PillPhone
A mobile application that helps consumers better manage their medication.
LookTel
An application that helps the visually impaired recognize objects.
MedApps
A mobile outpatient monitoring solution that proactively alerts doctors and nurses to potential health problems.
In a recent CNET article, Lance Whitney explores the exponential growth of wireless on a global level. With the ITU predicting that wireless subscriptions will reach 5 billion in 2010 (or 74 percent of the world’s population), it’s pretty clear mobile devices have become ubiquitous in today’s society. And the applications offered by mobile technology are in great demand.
This week at the Mobile World Congress, held in Barcelona, International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Secretary-General Dr. Hamadoun Toure discussed the growing role that mobile plays in providing Internet access:
"Even during an economic crisis, we have seen no drop in the demand for communications services and I am confident that we will continue to see a rapid uptake in mobile cellular services in particular in 2010, with many more people using their phones to access the Internet."
This increase in mobile connectivity can have positive implications for people around the globe.
"Even the simplest, low-end mobile phone can do so much to improve health care in the developing world," said Toure. "Good examples include sending reminder messages to patients' phones when they have a medical appointment, or need a prenatal check-up. Or using SMS messages to deliver instructions on when and how to take complex medication such as anti-retrovirals or vaccines. It's such a simple thing to do, and yet it saves millions of dollars--and can help improve and even save the lives of millions of people."
With the exception of
reducing the Digital Divide, probably the greatest social benefit from wireless
technology is its potential to improve access to more affordable
healthcare. We've blogged a lot about
this (see here, here and here) and nowthanks to Venuri Siriwardane at the Newark Star-Ledger, there's
even more evidence.
As
an example, Siriwardane cites fuzzy bedroom slippers with pressure sensors in
the soles which wirelessly transmit movement data, including information that
the wearer may be more likely to fall.
Of
greater potential benefit, researchers are pouring research funding into the
development of cost-effective wireless audio and video consultation services so
doctors may interact remotely with patients in real time.
The
reason for this is not hard to discern:
Remote
patient monitoring alone can generate between 20 percent to 40 percent in
savings, said Chris Wasden, managing director of health industries strategy and
innovation at PricewaterhouseCoopers....
Wasden [explained] that telehealth is much more common in developing
countries such as India, where cell phones enable people to receive health care
in remote areas that once lacked access to modern medicine. "They've already
developed the ability to deliver mobile health care to their people, but we're
behind the times on that."
Better
healthcare. More affordable access. That's the mobile future.
Teenagers are at
especially high risk, she writes this week, citing studies suggesting that a
majority of teen liver transplants fail and that teen patients are four times
more likely than adults to take their medications at the wrong time or to forget
to take them.
So how to reach
today's hard-to-reach teens? Last month, researchers at researchers at
Mount Sinai Hospital in New York published a study showing the remarkable
effectiveness of texting in improving success rates among young liver transplant
patients.
During a
year-long test, patients receiving texts were more likely to take their
medications. One result: while 12 of the young people experienced rejection
episodes in the previous year, only two did so during the
study.
The next time a text message appears on your phone, it may be your doc giving you an important
reminder.
Do you hate the cold stethoscope pressed against your back as your doctor asks for a good deep cough? Well, those days may soon be over thanks to our phones.
A recent article on Discovery Newsoffers exciting insight into new applications for our phones, which can analyze the sound of coughs and allow doctors to make initial diagnoses.
New research by American and Australian scientists aims to diagnose cold, flu, pneumonia or other respiratory diseases by analyzing coughs with software. The research could save patients across the world a trip to the doctor's office. Instead, they could simply cough into their cell phone and receive a diagnosis a few seconds later.
The implications for such research might not only save us a trip to the doctor's office, but could also help reduce the spread of contagious diseases and help employers keep sick workers at home, as a recent post on Internet Evolution points out.
If the software commercially existed now, it could go far in preventing the spread of H1N1 flu, as infected people would no longer congregate in doctors' offices, nor could they stay at work while sick. An employer could simply require any staff member to cough into her phone to check to see if the illness is contagious. Or an employer could require employees to cough into their phones before reporting in to work.
There are still a number of issues to be worked out: how to sterilize our phones after coughing into them, or how doctors will account for the factors like age, sex and weight that influence coughs. Still, the possibility of bringing the point of diagnosis from the doctor's office to any place we can take our phones must not be overlooked.
Our nation has been consumed over the last few months with the need to improve healthcare while reducing healthcare costs. Here's a chance for our phones to help do both.
"We're in the adolescence of the mobile and wireless revolution," said White House policy expert Tom Kalil, as he began his discussion of wireless issues and federal policy at today's Mobile Future luncheon in Washington.
Kalil, the Deputy Director for Policy in the Office of Science and Technology, said the Obama Administration understood and respected the immense economic and social benefits of a burgeoning wireless industry. "We want to create the right policy environment for private sector investment," he said, adding that "[Wireless] innovation is a powerful tool to address the broad range of challenges we face."
As an example, he cited mobile healthcare - "a really promising area." He also cited the power of wireless in connection with other advances such as nanotechnology, which will soon put the entire contents of the Library of Congress on a device the size of a sugar cube.
At a subsequent panel discussion, Debbie Goldman, an economist with the Communications Workers of America, discussed the linkage between wireless investment and union jobs. "There are 45,000 union workers in the wireless industry," she said. "Telecom networks are good employment opportunities that offer good career jobs for [union workers]."
Also on the panel was Citi Investment Research analyst Michael Rollins, who discussed the relationship between industry investment and government regulation. "In the telecom industry, you deal with long-life assets," he said. That makes changes in regulation a cause for great concern.
Also presenting at the luncheon were economists Robert Hahn and Hal Singer, who discussed the economic implications of exclusive mobile handset contracts between manufacturers and wireless carriers. To access their paper, please click here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1477042
Telecom TV ran an interesting piece this week on mobile phones in Rwanda. The country is home to approximately 10 million people, and of those citizens, more than 300,000 are infected with HIV or AIDS. While Rwanda is one of the most densely populated countries in Africa, 78 percent of the population lives in rural areas and mountainous regions, which makes treating disease a difficult prospect. In order to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS, healthcare providers must be able to circulate accurate information about prevention and treatment options.
To improve communications, the Rwandan government has found a new solution to connect providers with patients. TRACnet is a web-based software tool that also utilizes cell phones to connect hospitals and clinics. Healthcare providers can use TRACnet to connect with each other, to disseminate information on HIV/AIDS to patients, and update the government so that it can respond with adequate support and supplies. The data can be sent over the Internet or over mobile phones, and it employs a two-way system that allows individuals to send out info and messages as well as access information like lab results.
Ultimately, the numbers speak for themselves - three years ago, twelve centers were treating 1000 patients, now there are over 40,000 individuals in treatment using lifesaving wireless technologies. To learn more, check out the piece below or at Telecom TV.
Building on Jonathan Spalter's blog from a few weeks ago, I would also like to discuss the application of cell phones to the dilemmas faced in rural medicine. When my family moved from Washington, D.C. to Montana, I realized that there was a lot more than just real estate to consider when moving from a busy metropolis to quieter community. When you live in large city, your healthcare options are numerous from different hospitals to alternative medicine and cutting edge technology. In many rural areas, it's not that easy.
However, advancements in cellular and medical technology and the expansion of network coverage have resulted in healthcare breakthroughs in rural areas that are applicable in the U.S. and abroad. Recent achievements include:
Cell phones attached to EKG (electrocardiogram) devices that can continuously collect and monitor data on heart rhythms. If a patient's heart rhythm becomes dangerous, the cell phone calls the emergency room. Doctors are alerted by the phone call and can then begin to diagnose and prepare to treat the patient upon arrival at the hospital. This is critical for long ambulance rides to the hospital in which every minute counts and can literally be the difference between life, disability or death.
The scanner mentioned in Jonathan Spalter's blog can spot simulated breast tumors and is field testing spotting internal bleeding, a frequent cause of post-childbirth deaths in developing countries.
A speech therapy program, nicknamed Baldi, is a computer program that features an animated language tutor and has helped autistic and hearing-impaired children learn to talk. This program is currently being adapted for the cell phone screen and is hoping to aid Malaysian stroke victims. Forty-thousand Malaysians suffer strokes each year and a third of survivors have speech impairments. Cell phones reach about twice as much of Malaysia as Internet access so if the Baldi program is successful at virtual therapy via cell phone, the government of Malaysia has agreed to "help provide cell phones," according to the leader of the research team, Sri Kurniawan.
To learn more about these research efforts, you can read about them in this article from the San Jose Mercury news.
Additional medical applications of cellular technology are utilizing the text message feature on cell phones. With over 250 million wireless subscribers in the United States, many of whom take one or more prescription drugs, some companies have created applications that allow you to look up your prescription drug information and sends text reminders for when you are supposed to take your pills. These applications are particularly useful for avoiding negative drug interactions. For those of us who are extremely busy and/or forgetful, it's great for keeping track of dosages and following the prescribed schedule set by your doctor.
With all the advancements in medical and cellular technology, there are sure to be many more healthcare breakthroughs in the future, and this can only mean good things for rural healthcare in the U.S. and abroad.
Mobile phones and the future of public health are converging in ways never imagined.
I read recently about one mobile application being advanced by a visionary group of engineers at the University of California at Berkeley which may well revolutionize - and democratize -- the world of medical diagnostics.
Their idea is to harness the technology and ubiquity of the mobile phone as a platform for medical imaging, and make it accessible potentially to literally billions of people around the world.
"According to the World Health Organization, some three-quarters of the world's population has no access to ultrasounds, X-rays, magnetic resonance images, and other medical imaging technology used for a wide range of applications, from detecting tumors to confirming tuberculosis infections to monitoring developing fetuses.", according to Science Daily. And this is where Boris Rubinksy, a UC professor of bioengineering and his team come in.
The team has developed a new technique which would allow a mobile phone to be used as a medical imaging viewer, so medical personnel in the field can retrieve a variety of medical images at points of care where more expensive hardware is not available. This would mean that any healthcare provider can view a variety of medical diagnostic tools - from X-rays to ultrasounds to magnetic resonance imaging -- anywhere at anytime.
"Medical imaging is something we take for granted in industrialized countries," said Rubinsky, UC Berkeley professor of bioengineering and mechanical engineering and head of the team that developed this new application for cell phones. "Imaging is considered one of the most important achievements in modern medicine. Diagnosis and treatment of an estimated 20 percent of diseases would benefit from medical imaging, yet this advancement has been out of reach for millions of people in the world because the equipment is too costly to maintain. Our system would make imaging technology inexpensive and accessible for these underserved populations."
As a demonstration of the application of cell phones for medical imaging, Rubinsky and his colleagues, Antoni Ivorra, and Yair Granot, have focused their first field test on electrical impedance tomography (EIT), which creates images of electrical currents in diseased tissue. Using commercially available parts to acquire electrical current data from patients, the team was able to upload the data to a cell phone via a USB, and the reconstruct the data for viewing on the cell phone.
The results of their test, which were supported by the National Institutes of Health, The Israeli Science Foundation, and Florida Hospital in Orlando, were reported in the open access journal, Public Library of Science ONE (PLoS ONE), and suggested by the authors that simulated tumors were visible in the cell phone image.
If and when this new approach to using cell phones as a way to facilitate medical diagnoses develops on a broader scale, medically underserved areas around the world could have a viable and accessible means to bring advanced medical diagnostics to patient care where it has not previously been available, or affordable.
Much work remains for Rubinsky and his team, as well as for other innovative mobile phone initiatives, to successfully harness the attributes of cellular technology and deploy them for improving public health. But this new effort is indicative of the exciting efforts underway in the broader world of mobile phone technology, and the remarkable convergence underway between mobile technology and meeting important human needs.
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