If your health records are online, they can theoretically be accessed by any hospital anywhere in the world, which could save your life, if you’re traveling and have a health emergency. My view is that the privacy concern will eventually be eradicated, in much the same way people are no longer extremely concerned about online payments and banking, as they were in the early days of the internet, which I know first hand by spending a summer researching online banking and online bill pay features for QuickBooks in 1995.
Check out this decontamination point at the Maun airport in Botswana. Imagine in the future airport screenings for biological agents, as well as for viruses like SARS and bird flu, to contain epidemics, and reduce the threat of bio-terror.
Food analysis (ie the labels on food products at the grocery store) is currently an expensive and labor intensive process. However, Philips has submitted a patent application for a portable food and beverage analyzer (lab on a chip technology), so you could potentially know the makeup of food in bars and restaurants. [patent application here.]
IBM researchers in Zurich have developed a 3d engine technology to display patient health records. It integrates heterogeneous data sources and complex text-based information and links that data to the anatomical model in an easy-to-navigate format. The technology is likened to Google Earth. “In hopes of speeding the move toward electronic healthcare records, we’ve tried to make information easily accessible for healthcare providers by combining medical data with visual representation, making it as simple as possible to interact with data that can improve patient care,” the lead researcher Andre Elisseeff said. The is particularly interesting in light of Microsoft’s initiative launched this week to move medical records online.
first upgrade in over 100 years - a simple innovation to help reduce the number (500,000 people / year) who drown, but sometimes there’s brilliance in the most simple of solutions.
great story about the potential of franchising for economic development and better healthcare in Africa. Franchising, coupled with micro-lending, holds the potential for huge quality-of-life improvements in the developing world. The is also the model Dean Kamen envisions for his water purification systems, but he says, there is ridiculous resistance for innovative solutions from global aid agencies, as well as well-funded foundations and non-profits.
