Healthcare Advancement : The iPhone Doctor

With the limitless advancements in technology especially in the areas of communication, internet, and wireless connections, we are witnessing and experiencing discoveries that we could never think of even in our dreams. It is a sort of many dreams have come true in our lifetime. Now we have the iPhone medicine or iPhone Doctor.

This article is about healthcare advancement in the fields of wireless technology and intelligent applications. Perhaps the greatest innovation of the 21^st century so far is the smartphone. From a bulky wireless telephone called under various names around the world, we now have the smart phone, the really extremely smart phone. Originating from a simple tool for communication, the latest smartphone has become a tool for limitless applications. One of the most important applications is in the field of healthcare and medicine.

Pioneering and leading the field of smartphone healthcare and medicine is Eric J. Topol, M.D. who is an American cardiologist, geneticist and researcher. Since 2009, Dr. Topol has collaborated with Gary and Mary West under the West Wireless Health Institute in the task of developing, validating and accelerating wireless medicine.

What is this wireless medicine? It is healthcare and medicine using the smartphone technology. Patients don’t have to wait in hospitals anymore. They don’t have to wait days for test results and pay exorbitant fees to be told that they had cancer. With the innovative use of plug-in gadgets fitted onto smartphones, patients now can monitor their health conditions. These smart application plug-ins with separate wireless gadgets looking like thumbdrives and credit cards can perform blood test, glucose test, saliva test, urine test, sweat test, monitor heart conditions and what have you. Tests and data can be collected immediately and continuously , and sent through the smartphones to doctors and clinics for immediate attention. The smartphone can even be used to show moving scanned pictures like the ultrasound screen. The applications and benefits are indeed limitless.

The device can now monitor and alert the patient on any impending health disaster like a heart attack, days before it actually happens. This is fantastic.

Whatever the technological advancement in medicine, the best defense for all of us is to maintain our good health. Dr Topol has a commitment to exercise at least for an hour everyday irrespective of his busy schedule. He seldom uses the elevators. Doctor Topol's mother succumbed to leukemia in her early 50s and his father had end-stage diabetes and was blinded at age 49. Dr. Topol certainly knows what good health is all about. So let's eat healthy, think healthy, stay healthy and be healthy.

I think the iPhone Doctor will take some time to reach global applications. It will involve so many departments and expertise to implement this concept that I personally doubt the iPhone Doctor will soon be a common health feature worldwide. Maybe in another twenty years?

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