Mobile and healthcare has been abbreviated to mHealth and there has been significant amount of work that is being done to make mobile applications that will work in the healthcare space. The applications in the iPhone app store vary from not so useful “Anti-mosquito” and “White noise” to more useful ones like Pedometer and Calorie-counter but also include commercial applications from CVS or others. However, there are several diagnostic applications possible that are meaningful.
We are working on developing applications that will monitor the course of a disease. In this case, it is not a diagnostic application which will make the clinical decision on whether you have the disease or not, but rather developing applications that tell you about the progression of the disease using a unique biomarker. The diagnosis of the disease is probably best left to the doctor whereas the progression of the disease study will be one of the parameters that a health care professional will use to make a decision affecting patient’s health.
Two area’s that needs disruptive technology is management of skin and health through unconventional technologies.
Skin
Skin can be easily monitored at regular intervals with photo based applications. This should enable the progression of skin conditions such as eczema or can also enable measurement of dryness or oily skin. Skin is important from a commercial point of view with the make-up, beauty and fragrance industry but also important since it serves as a first line of defense for infections and the change in skin conditions are a major indication for many diseases.
Bathing
Bathing has been typically been thought about as a cleansing activity. But embedding sensors into the bathing water that monitor presence of occult blood or strange metabolites should enable deeper healthcare applications. In those instances the mobility is just enabling convenient electronics that have display and transmission of information built into the device while the sensors can be distributed – whether it is the bath water sensor or a air pressure sensor, it does not matter.