iPhone 3.0 almost medical tricorder 1.0 at bioneural.net

I was always envious of the standard-issue Starfleet medical tricorder that "Bones" McKoy would employ with no-touch relish to confirm "He's dead, Jim!". At a recent iPhone OS 3.0 sneak peak event Apple unveiled a new developer API with accessory support that was exemplified by two biomedical applications.

Tricorder evolution (images © GeekAlerts, Apple)

Existing options

Prior to OS 3.0 iPhone users have had access to a number of "soft" tricorder options, albeit with somewhat limited functionality. There are several excellent medical knowledge management applications for iPhone, as noted here previously and recently in the British Medical Journal. One novel app, iStethoscope (video demo here), uses the microphone of your iPhone to auscultate your heart beat; there are also entertainment value-only eye candy tricorder apps.

Coming soon

The potential for telemedical applications to upload real-time data to remote clinical information systems could revolutionise aspects of clinical governance—the right provider (your own) offering the right advice (based on actual biometrics) to the right person (authenticating with your phone) in the right place (wherever you happen to be) at the right time (now, not next week when there's a free appointment). Apple's March 17 keynote event (787MB .m4v) introducing the iPhone 3.0 OS offered a glimpse into this future. Developers can now write applications that "talk" directly to hardware accessories, such as medical devices, via the dock connector, bluetooth, or WiFi/ Internet. For example, if the iPhone were connected to a sphygnometer it could read and store blood pressure measurements, providing historical charts and trend identification. According to Apple's Forrestall these data could optionally be transmitted to your health care professional (podcast time code 00:17:48):

An iPhone that truly indicates your stress levels? (image © Apple)

LifeScan demonstrated a blood glucose monitoring application receiving data from a finger-prick meter (podcast time code 00:43:28). Surely the perfect match for an insulin hypospray?

Display of blood glucose meter readings (image © Apple)

A LACRS-like touch screen interface does not however imply that an iPhone tricorder is a hands-free affair. While it may make the appropriate beeping noises, biometrics do at this point continue to require old-fashioned device-patient physical contact!

2 responses to iPhone 3.0 almost medical tricorder 1.0

1 icerabbit
Mar 22nd, 2009 at 5:53 pm

I thought of you during that announcement. The future is sure bright with iPhone 3.0 ... coming to iPhones this summer?

Besides some power & practical considerations - like safely holding the iPhone while performing the exam * - my immediate worry was that the fragile thin ipod connector wire without boot strain will not hold up in practice.

* My doc holds a stethoscope in place with one hand, counts the heart rate on his wrist watch, while the other hand operates the little air pump ... so where's the third hand for the iPhone ? ;)
2 Bruce
Mar 22nd, 2009 at 6:07 pm

where's the third hand for the iPhone

Hands? Oh that's so 20th century! Speech recognition is sadly embryonic, but eventually of course the iPhone tricorder should respond interactively like this, in keeping with LACRS tradition ;-)

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