Health and Technology 2012 - Doctor's case 2.0

Holland initiative for the tri-corder. Most of the diagnosis in the first line is referred by the GP, only a very small portion is performed by the GP. More diagnosis direcly performed by the GP could reduce healthcare costs significantly (approximately €900.000.000 per year in the Netherlands). A clear trend to group practices of GPs can be observed for flexiblity and cost efficiency. This trend could help to shift the diagnosis from the second to the first line (by GP).

Development and validation of medical devices and medical imaging informatics tools are a requirement to achieve this shift.

TNO has the ambition to develop within a period of 5 years the tricorder as anology to the tricorder used by dr McCoy in Star Trek. This tricorder should be used to provide test values that help the diagnosis as addition to the anamnese and the general impression/intuition of the GP. The tricorder should measure a list of 17 values within 5 minutes, be diagnostic effective with low false negative rate, and cost effective.

Go to www.hat-congres.nl for acces to the presentations of the conference

Health and Technology 2012 - Towards empowerment for wellbeing and healthy living

Prof. Hummels started with a movie showing the problems in healthcare. Technology could help tackle a lot of the problems but the patient should be central. Fundamental science only is not the way to solve all problems, science for society is required to have the link to evereyday life. One of the areas of research of the TU/e are smart environments. The aim is empowerment of people to live healthy using technology.

Development and trends in health And healthcare are:
1. Aging and chronic diseases
2. Transforming the healthcare system
3. Healthy lifestyle: primary prevention
4. Integrative care
5. Unique personalized solutions
6. Self-management via networked technology
7. Ethics, safety and privacy

Technology trend such as social networking, knowledge economy could help tackle the challenges involved in healthcare if we can evolve to a transformation economy where solutions are developed locally with collaboration of involved stakeholders.

Smart environments involve staying healthy (prevention), empowerment in daily life, and making healthcare sustainable.

Go to www.hat-congres.nl for acces to the presentations of the conference

Frugal innovation in healthcare

In Technisch Weekblad of February 18, 2012 an article was published on Frugal Innovation (in Dutch). In frugal innovation the aim is to design prodcuts such that they can be used in less develope countries by taking 80 to 90 percent of the price.
One example they discuss is the development in India by Neurosynaptic, a company that develops medical technology. They have developed a kit that can measure heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, an oxygen. Furthermore, camera, computer and networkconnection is included for below €400. One consult this way only costs about 70 eurocents! Using this they can help patients in rural areas by deploying and using the kit locally and have a medical docter at the other end of the line in the city that can read out all the values and have contact with the patient via video conferencing.
The system works at 32 KB/s datlines and can handle the irregular power supply in India.
Surprisingly, this development is now also brought to the developed countries to be used for home monitoring of patients.

Registration of heartbeat and location of elderly people

A Dutch development involves the use of smartphones and a heart beat sensor to register the heartbeat of elderly people. Partner or children of the subject will automatically get a notification when there is a problem with the subject and can see on their phone what the problem is, where the subject is located and what the shortest route to the subject is from the current position. A great development that could be a good solution for cardiac patients. The youtube movie below gives a short introduction in Dutch, the website is also only in Dutch.

Students Bring Health Care to Underserved Patients - IEEE - The Institute

In remote areas, access to a medical specialist usually means waiting months for an appointment and traveling hundreds of kilometers. For example, in northern Brazil, the country’s least inhabited area, a sick person on Marajó Island must travel anywhere from 12 to 24 hours by boat to Belém, the capital of Pará State, to find the nearest hospital. Regular checkups are practically impossible.

The problem can be especially acute for an expectant mother, who should get four periodic ultrasounds to determine the health of her fetus during her pregnancy, according to the World Health Organization.

A group of IEEE student members from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, in Porto Alegre, Brazil, developed a telemedicine system that can help. With the system, which is outfitted with a video camera and microphone, physicians at remote health centers perform examinations that are guided by specialists at distant hospitals. The specialists analyze the results—in real-time—as video and audio of the procedure is sent using a broadband-over-power-line (BPL), satellite, or Internet connection.

Students Bring Health Care to Underserved Patients - IEEE - The Institute