Robotic Glove That Diagnoses Illnesses: Coming To A Doctor’s Office Near You — #HITsm Chat Discovery

This is the continuation of the #HITsm Tweet Chat Highlights series. 

Have you read about the “the hand” – you examine yourself with glove – wireless to doc for dx? ow.ly/dd6is 

— CIPROMS, Inc. (@CIPROMS) 

Here’s a video about this one:

Basically, you examine yourself with this glove, and it diagnoses you. It supposedly can detect anything the size and location of a lump during a self-breast exam, identify enlarged lymph nodes, to determining a cause for abdominal pain. From there, the information gathered can be delivered wirelessly to another source. The possibilities appear to be endless. While it isn’t yet available for use, the creators (two engineers and a Harvard Medical Student), hope to release it to “medical education settings” to help doctor’s better their examiniation skills, and then to actual, practicing physicians. Eventually, they hope to create a “consumer-friendly” version that will be available for anyone who wants to do self-exams on themselves. According to the article, “In Med Sensation’s future filled with robotic hands, patients will need to go to the doctor for a whole lot less.”

Are doctor’s going to become obsolete in the future? I mean, if this “magical” hand can pretty diagnose everything, we’ll just have to go to doctors to get things like prescriptions filled, and given treatments for the hand-diagnosed illnesses, right? Well, probably not. I don’t think I’ll be trading in actual one-on-one contact with a physician for a robotic hand. As I was telling my husband about this, he commented that it sounded like a hypochondriac’s dream product. He’s probably right, which is why I don’t think it would be a good idea for me to use one.

I do think this product could cut down significantly on how many people go into doctors, if, in fact, it is very accurate. I wouldn’t want my health to be in the “hands” of this glove necessarily (okay, cheesy joke) unless I knew it was not going to misdiagnose me. It’s a pretty awesome invention though, I must admit.

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August 29, 2012 I Written By

Katie Clark is originally from Colorado and currently lives in Utah with her husband and son. She writes primarily for Smart Phone Health Care, but contributes to several Health Care Scene blogs, including EMR Thoughts, EMR and EHR, and EMR and HIPAA. She enjoys learning about Health IT and mHealth, and finding ways to improve her own health along the way.

Filed Under: Gadgets  Health Care  Healthcare IT  mHealth  Mobile Health Care  Patient Home Monitoring
Tags:#HITsm      mHealth Glove    Robotic Hand  

Meducation SMART app Wins Children’s Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School Health App Competition

If the winner of this contest is any indication of the level of development necessary for success in future competitions, developers better bring their “A” game.  The Meducation SMART app provides a great range of abilities that make it a truly dynamic tool.

From the official press release:

“The SMART (Substitutable Medical Applications, Reusable Technologies) Platform Apps Challenge tasked developers with creating web applications that would interface with an electronic medical record (EMR) or personally controlled health record (PCHR) and demonstrate value to patients, physicians, or public health researchers.”

So what exactly does the Meducation app do?  It helps patients to better understand the medications they are taking through proper instructions, warnings, and, for more complicated medications, even has video demos. The medications available are pulled directly from the patient record so you get the information that is relevant to you.

Another useful feature that is becoming more important is that it can translate into 12 different languages, including english.  What I mean by that is the instructions are given at a 5th-6th grade level so they are easy to understand for almost anyone.  This makes it far less likely for patients to get confused and risk their health through misuse.

For the official press release for the contest please go here.

For more information about the Meducation SMART app please visit their contest page.

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June 30, 2011 I Written By

Filed Under: Health Care  Healthcare IT  mHealth  Mobile Health Care
Tags:Children's Hospital Boston  EMR App Interface    Health App Competition  Medication Apps  Meducation SMART App  Personally Controlled Health Record  Polyglot Systems Inc.  Prescription Apps  SMART Platform Apps Challenge  Substitutable Medical Applications Reusable Technologies  Universal Medication Schedule

RockHealth Selects 10 Start-Ups for Intensive Program Bringing a Surge of Talent to Healthcare Apps

Back in April I wrote about an exciting opportunity with RockHealth who was looking for innovative start-ups to help mentor into leaders of the evolution of mobile apps in the healthcare industry.  That article can be found here.  RockHealth has now selected their 10 start-ups who will begin an intensive five month program.  The full press release can be found below.  I will try and find out more about each of these start-ups in the next few weeks.

SAN FRANCISCO – Ten start-ups have been chosen as part of a development and mentoring program that aims at developing next-generation mobile applications for the healthcare industry.

Rock Health, a seed accelerator for Web and mobile health applications, chose the 10 start-ups as part of its inaugural accelerator program. The chosen start-ups reflect trends that are shaping the next generation of health-related applications in terms of both vertical and origin.

Ideas for transformative tools addressing personal health and patient care were crafted by developers of varying backgrounds, many of whom experienced personal health-related challenges or first-hand professional needs that served as inspiration for their projects.

The selected start-ups are:

  • BrainBot (technology to improve mental performance)
  • CellScope (at-home diagnosis of diseases)
  • Genomera (personal health collaboration)
  • Health In Reach (medical procedure marketplace)
  • Omada Health (clinical treatment social networking)
  • Pipette (patient monitoring and education)
  • Skimble (mobile fitness)
  • WeSprout (connecting health data and community)
  • Three additional startups in stealth mode

Over 350 submitted entries were evaluated by Rock Health’s partners—leading organizations in the technology and health ecosystems, including prestigious Silicon Valley VCs and top-tier hospitals.

The start-ups now enter an intense, five-month program providing funding in the form of a $20,000 grant, infrastructure, strategic medical, branding, communications and legal support, and mentoring from experts  (including the Mayo Clinic, Harvard Medical School and Cincinnati Children’s) in design, health policy, lean start-up methodology and finance. 

In addition, Rock Health selected a small group of member start-ups to receive resources and operational support.

Rock Health’s investors include Aberdare Ventures, Accel Partners, the California HealthCare Foundation, Microsoft’s BizSpark and Health Solutions Group, Mohr Davidow Ventures, NEA, Nike, and Qualcomm.

“The quality of applications submitted was outstanding, and the sheer number of ideas we reviewed is testimony to an industry that is only on the cusp of gaining traction,” said Halle Tecco, founder and managing director of Rock Health. “The dominating themes addressed needs in both consumer and professional spheres, showing that the entire health ecosystem has the potential to evolve. We look forward to accompanying these start-ups through to the next phase and, although we were unable to select all qualified applicants, encourage each developer to continue to explore creativity in this sector.”

“Until now, the healthcare and technology spheres have been totally separate. The brilliance of Rock Health is that, for the first time, a surge of talent is flowing into health apps – the same brainy, bold, blue-sky entrepreneurs who brought about Web 2.0,” said Patrick Chung, partner at NEA. “These entrepreneurs see an ailing sector that can be restored more cheaply, easily and inventively than ever before. This inaugural class brings together physicians, Web designers and more than a few yogis to work on cool, diverse concepts. Rock Health is an excitant in a field of infirmity.”

“We are thrilled to be working with Rock Health and engaging in the powerful ecosystem that is being developed,” added Michael Matley, leader in business development and new ventures for the Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation. “By coupling the passion and innovation of these entrepreneurs, the scaling and business expertise of great investors, and the clinical expertise of the Mayo Clinic, we hope to create solutions to healthcare’s most compelling problems.”

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June 3, 2011 I Written By

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