Despite the economy being down, and wireless medical devices are on the rise!
Bringing mobile health to the masses is Day 2 keynote speaker Dr. Eric Topol. Formerly of the Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Topol is now the Director of the Transitional Sciences Division and Chief Academic Officer of the Scripps Clinic Research Institute.
The medical industry in the U.S. is a $2.2 trillion dollar a year industry, which is 16% of our GDP. However, we are ranked 19th among the world’s countries in this category, and still 100K persons die here in hospitals from medical errors every year.
There is tremendous potential for Digital Medical wireless devices in many medical areas including: high-risk pregnancy, sleep and behavior, custom fitness, virtual diet coach, continuous vital signs (for those transferred home from an ICU), the electronic cardiogram, in addition to the ‘pill phone’ that is able to interact with your body and notify you wirelessly of its changes. Another such device is the continuous glucose monitor – CGM – for diabetes sufferers, this can act also as a monitor for glucose, or for blood pressure, but also as an instant insulin pump.
What we are witnessing is really a sea change – the way that medicine is practiced, and medicine and support can be delivered. With wireless medicine, we are really seeing a flat world, across the globe, with our reliance on mobile, and medicine and health support can know no boundaries.
One incredibly interesting issue is microchips. In pills. What a crazy innovation! Pills that are being revamped with microchips to be guided through your body’s systems, programmed to release certain meds, at certain points, via wireless tracking and computers. All through wireless activity relaying information, treatment, and the delivery of medicines within your body. For meds, it gives you the right dose, at the right time. It works like this – patient to device, then to hub, then to caregiver, then back through hub, then to device, then to patient.
Dr. Topol also spoke about reducing medical errors and reducing need for bed space at hospitals, with out-patient and home-tracking systems. This technology would easily enable doctors to monitor, via wireless, patients in the middle of the night. Dr. Topol predicts out-patient tracking, at home, with remote monitoring, will be very big. And critical to the future of medicine.
Each health issue, no matter your condition/disease/affliction, all transmitted with data relay through wireless, will definitely boost to emergency and physician care readiness. Look at brain waves while you sleep for rest and behavioral studies, or look at ‘smart band-aids’ for calories and body fat and diet issues…all from the convenience of your mobile device.
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