Over the weekend I watched a few videos from TED and particularly liked this one from Eric Topol. Topol is a cardiologist and geneticist with research interests in mobile health initiatives; he’s also the director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute.
His presentation, The Future of Wireless Medicine, was of immediate interest to me given our class discussion recently on the ways information technology is used in health care (see my previous post). The talk covers various technologies available for monitoring personal health status using wireless capture devices- such as vital signs, fetal signs, sleep patterns, etc. These devices have the capability to project data to your smartphone – imagine a NIKE shoe that uses a sensor in the sole to monitor your physiological data or an iShoe designed to help with falls prevention.
The examples he covers are examples of how we can better capture data in our goal towards truly individualized & personalized medicine. They help bring us one step even closer to using IT to provide a more holistic view of us as patients.
Here are Topol’s list of the Top 10 targets for wireless medicine; each of these health conditions impacts millions.
The talk is interesting and I will be making sure to start tracking more mobile health projects.
