Mobile phones as doctors? This vision will be tested, starting in a few months. Photo Credit: X-Prize Foundation. From the article quoted.

Star Trek’s Dr. “Bones” McCoy made no bones about the state of 20th Century medicine — invasive, primitive, “Dark Ages,” were a few of his pejorative terms for modern medicine. In the 23rd century, Bones and other starship crew members used hand-held devices called “tricorders” that instantaneously diagnosed people’s injuries or sicknesses — and healed them as well. “It’s a wonder anyone made it out of the 20th century alive,” he once sniffed. 

Early next year, the X Prize Foundation — noted for competitions to in private space travel and moon probes — announced it will be launching a $10-million-prize competition to any team that can design the first functioning tricorder, that “will enable consumers in any location to quickly and effectively assess health conditions, determine if they need professional help and answer the question, ‘What do I do next?’” Quotes from the first article cited below.

I consider this a fantastic development. Smart phones are becoming the universal devices that desktops used to be in the 90’s. The difference being that we always carry them with us and they are (almost) always connected to the net. See also my previous blog on ’10-Cent Medical Checkup’ Using Cell Phones?

Do you know of other interesting uses for cell phones in e-Health?

Related articles

• Medical ‘tricorder’ device competition coming in 2012 (SmartPlanet, quotes above are from this article)
• Ultrawideband tech could connect your body to doctors, bring Tricorders to the mainstream (engadget.com)
• Ultrawideband gets humans one step closer to ‘tricorder’ (news.cnet.com)
• Apple’s iPhone 4 Hired as Tricorder for Space Station (pcworld.com)
• Diagnosis By the Device and the Algorithms – Scanadu Tri-Coder Project (ducknetweb.blogspot.com)