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Interesting paper at PLoS ONE. Some folks at Berkeley propose a centralized telemedicine network using cell phones:

Most medical devices have three main components: a) the data acquisition hardware which is in contact with the patient, b) the image display unit and c) the imaging processing hardware. We propose that physically separating these three units could yield a medical imaging technology that is robust, less expensive and can be used by less rigorously trained personnel.

The central insight, and most likely benefit of their proposal, is the actual imaging computations are better done in somewhere with the infrastructure to maintain availability, i.e. “the cloud“.
As far as the mechanics of the thing, the author’s admit some problems. By making some of the individual components simpler, they’ve introduced extra extra complexity into the overall system:

Indeed, an important issue to consider is the requirements for cell phone compatibility. If it is required that the DAD connects to every type of cell phone available the design will have to consider numerous constraints. On the other hand, if the DAD will only be compatible with cell phones that also function as Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and run an operating system such as Windows, the design could be very flexible and there are still enough available options on the market for this.

Yet, PDA-type devices are the least likely of cell phones for a telemedicine site to have.

An example of their proof-of-concept, imaging a simulated tumor.

And one has to wonder how broad the reach of cell data networks are in these sorts of locales. Data coverage is spotty even in industrial countries like the US. A better proof of concept overall would have included an attempt at using SMS/MMS. The authors do makes some gestures toward alternative communication methods:

A second option is to upload the data to the cell phone and to send it using the cell phone’s links such as Email, texting / MMS options or Telnet. This depends on the types of service that the cellular provider supports, but at least text messages are a widely available option today, even in the simplest cellular networks.

Hopefully they can follow up along those lines.

Definitely a cool enough idea that someone with some ability to actually implement it should take note.

Tags:   cell phones · cloud computing · development · medicineNo Comments