23 February 2010

The wireless future of medicine: Eric Topol on TED.com

Eric Topol says we’ll soon use our smartphones to monitor our vital signs and chronic conditions. At TEDMED, he highlights several of the most important wireless devices in medicine’s future — all helping to keep more of us out of hospital beds. (Recorded at TEDMED, October 2009, in San Diego, CA. Duration: 16:59)

Watch Eric Topol’s talk from TEDMED on TED.com, where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 600+ TEDTalks.

Discuss this Blog Post

Fred Vanderpoel
Feb 28 2010
Dr PANG DOH is an expert in telehealth working with the HCIL, Hawaii Centers for Independent Living and Gordon Fuller it’s new Executive Director. You might want to get in touch with these gentlemen who are proponents of the technology.
lorrin.pang@doh.hawaii.gov] gordonf@pacificil.org, http://www.myhcil.com
dpri priya
Mar 2 2010
Very interesting. If this smartphone reaches all persons then maybe they can diagonise their health themselves and become their own doctor.It will be a remarkable developement in the field of medicine. They have chose the common chronic diseases in man and have developed a remarkable prevention technique. This smartphone is really smart. Hats off to the inventor.
shine pink
Mar 2 2010
I am very proud of the growth in technology to such an extent.I thank Gary and Mary West who was the founder of the health institute named “WEST WIRELESS HEALTH INSTITUTE”.It does a beautiful job of saving human lives prior to death..The iPhone has replaced the work load of thousands of doctors since it could monitor the critical diseases ,very absolute than a doctor could do…it saves people ‘s time as they could care of their health themselves.The man has given an accurate statistical data to prove his talk,which shows that they had undergone a deep study on human diseases as well as they are concerned about human health.

They examined their technology in some chronic diseases which thus helped to bring a great improvement in medicine field.I again thank him for his contribution..and also requesting him to examine the side effects too…Wishing him to bring further modifications in the existing technology so that people’s precious lives could be saved…hats off… and good luck .
Doctor Bob
Mar 20 2010
I think this is great, but a little google time shows you can already do ultrasound on one’s cell phone, today, too. To me, that’s the key. GE’s system is very nice but imagine having all of the things shown on a single platform. I’ve read many of the comments and questions about security and such and every one is surmountable. We do financial transactions every day over cell phones and nobody worries about that (well, I’m sure some people do, but they have been shown to be accurate and secure). We have lots of patient data on laptops and PCs and don’t worry about that (again, some do, but it’s a solved problem). And I’m getting a bit tired of the people who refuse to read the research on wireless devices that show that there is no significant effect of them on our health. Stop quoting one study that shows some small increase in something and look at the science (there is a huge body of evidence).

Another way to look at all of this is that the benefits far outweigh the risk.
dpri priya
Mar 25 2010
The wire less future of medicine. If this becomes a reality it will be a remarkable achievement in the field of medicine.

Without any pain we can diagnose our vital organs. In fact we can become our own doctors. We will be able to see the signs of our organs in smartphone and say ” Oh my god my pressure is getting too high” or ” I am likely to get a heart attack”. That would be thrilling.

Heart rhythm, sleep sensor, blood pressure, the oxygen intake, temperature all in one device. If these are made wireless we need not go to hospitals and can save time too.

The glucose sensors can really help diabetics patients to monitor their health. The technology behind the new machine for Holter monitoring was superb.

The sleep tracker was really fascinating. They have chosen the most common chronic diseases in man and have developed a remarkable prevention technique.The talk also helped me know many facts about the common diseases. The smart phone is really smart. Hats off to the invento
Pingback: So long, stethoscope: the future of medicine is wireless - SmartPlanet
Dan Dennis De Leon
May 2 2011
True enough that the gadgetry and its applications in modern medicine is moving forward in this direction. However, another wireless innovation that has a lot of potential is cloud computing and electronic medical data management and epidemiology. Imagine how the future of research can be greatly improved by a seamless acquisition of vast amounts of medical data from the population and storing it anonymously in a pool from which a researcher can access whatever information may be pertinent to his line of study.
Pingback: A Khan Academy For Doctors | Publicyte