Eyewire and Crowdsourced Science

One of the really interesting people I met at TEDMED was Amy Robinson. She’s from MIT and is working on some of the coolest brain technology out there. I’d first seen something similar to their work at CES where they had you control a helicopter with your brain. It’s pretty insane technology. At TEDMED they did a similar thing where you’d control a Xerox cube with your brain.

Amy also taught be about their game to map the brain called EyeWire. It’s been around for ~5 months and already has 60,000 players from 130 countries mapping neurons in 3D to decipher information processing networks in the brain. More simply put, they have 60,000 people playing games to benefit science.

It’s such a beautiful concept. I logged in and started doing some of the mapping. It’s really simple to get started, but I can see how you’re going to have to be pretty creative and detail oriented to be successful at the game. Plus, it’s cool to think that you’re contributing in even a small way to future scientific discovery.

I’ve long loved the idea of crowdsourcing and I’m really glad to see it being applied to science and healthcare. It’s amazing what a crowd of people each contributing a little bit can create.

Post a Comment(0)
April 29, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 6000 articles with John having written over 3000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 14 million times. John also manages Healthcare IT Central and Healthcare IT Today, the leading career Health IT job board and blog. John launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: and and .

Filed Under: Health Care  Healthcare IT
Tags:Amy Robinson  EyeWire  MIT    

The Smartphone Physical – Is It Possible?

Sometimes I mention that, with all of the mHealth apps and technology that is being developed, there may come a day that we won’t have to leave our homes to see the doctor. Well, that day may be sooner than I thought.

I just read this article, about how Johns Hopkins’ student, Shiv Gaglani and a team of other physicians-to-be, will be doing a “smartphone physical” demo at TEDMED 2013 (Note: John Lynn will be at TEDMED if anyone is interested in meeting him there). The physicals will include a variety of different tools and measurements, and feature a variety of popular mHealth devices. Some of the items that will be used include:

  • an iHealth scale
  • a digital stethoscope from ThinkLabs
  • CellScope phone case

(to see the comprehensive list, visit the article I linked to above.)

Gaglani believes that these smartphone physicals will be more efficient, and help patients to understand their bodies and health a little more:

For example, thanks to the AliveCor Heart Monitor, it has never been easier to get a one-lead ECG reading. Similarly, the Withings and iHealth blood pressure cuffs are plug-and-play so a clinician doesn’t have to fumble around with both a stethoscope and sphygmomanometer to assess whether her patient is hypersensitive.

The article also mentions that Gaglani believes that these types of exams will help immensely with data collection. It sounds like, if all goes according to plan, the data could immediately be uploaded to a practice’s EMR. This type of device connectivity is an important part to the future of Telehealth.

For someone who is healthy, and doesn’t necessarily want or need a heavily physician-involved physical, this is could be really great. I could see it saving a lot of time and effort that is involved with going to the doctor. While it seems like there will probably a lot of logistics to be sorted out, it’s need to see something like this in the works. What do you think — would you want to participate in a smartphone physical? Does it seem reliable enough to replace having a physician perform the physical themselves?

Post a Comment(1)
April 8, 2013 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: Health Care  Healthcare IT  Medical Devices  mHealth  Mobile Health Care  Patient Home Monitoring
Tags: