Medical Advances—Through Your Cell Phone

Update and Additional information on telemedicine... it will be a challenge in the future to be able to select the product and device that works for both the patient, physician and sometimes the hospital as well....when on the run, cell phones are a great asset for deriving and entering information....BD

The University of California professor says that by reducing a complex electromagnetic imaging machine to a portable electromagnetic scanner that can work in tandem with a regular cell phone and a computer, he has essentially replicated a $10,000 piece of equipment for just hundreds of dollars. The mobile scanner plugs into the phone, which beams the data to the computer, generating an image that can be transmitted to a doctor or hospital far away.

Rubinsky is hardly the only medical researcher who sees this potential. Indeed, of some 30 health-care-related projects at various universities recently funded by Microsoft (MSFT) Research, 17 involve cell phones.

Cell phones can also play an integral role in remote care for patients with chronic illnesses. BeWell Mobile, based in San Francisco, has created an application that lets asthma or diabetes sufferers enter their home test results into their cell phones and send them to the doctor daily.