iPhone Case As An FDA-Approved EKG Machine?
Sooner or later, it was inevitable to use mobile apps and mobile health in the medical settings and now here is an iPhone case that just became an FDA-aproved EKG machine. What’s next?
Most iPhone cases just protect your phone from drops. If you’re getting fancy, it may have a fisheye camera lens or a screen-printed back. But what about diagnosing coronary heart disease, arrhythmia, or congenital heart defects? The AliveCor Heart Monitor is an FDA-approved iPhone case that can be held in your hands (or dramatically pressed against your chest) to produce an EKG/ECG–the infamous green blips pulsing patient-side in hospitals everywhere.
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This case is a great example of an easy way to get a quick look at someone’s heart waves. This device will prove to further empower the modern e-patient. Doctors who do not want to wait for an EKG to be taken may also find it useful. The smart phone has been playing more of an involved role in most of our lives lately. I remember a decade ago when I was content with a phone that merely called people. Now that we are being presented with all of this technology with new and useful capabilities, we should think about improving the efficiency of what was done in the past. A phone can put us face to face with a doctor. It can track and record our vitals and then display this data for us and our physician to see. Once HIPAA regulations are revised, an EMR can be obtained, and possibly contributed to, by a patient on their smart phone or tablet. We have all of these tools connecting us together, but it seems like healthcare will always be catching up to society in terms of technological connectivity. Most of the waste and high costs of healthcare can be reduced if we better utilize technology.
There are many new applications that promise to “digitize human beings” just as this iPhone application does. People like Dr. Eric Topol do a great job of introducing new innovations in healthcare technology. There are now bio-sensors that are worn on the body for long periods of time that can track vitals, and detect the early onsets of symptoms. Technology like this can help to personalize medicine by getting more quality data into the possession of the doctor. In the future, genomics will be a critical factor powering personalized medicine. Essentially, medicine is investigating down into one of the most fundamental aspects of what makes you unique. To do this, enormous amounts of data must be processed. Luckily, researchers in the laboratory are creating complex algorithms to figure out how genomics can affect our health, and everybody else is using their smart phone to track how their body is functioning. To avoid data overload, data must be prioritized and categorized; because in the future, due to devices like the one featured here, we will have massive amounts of data that we must have control over if we are to actually solve any medical problems.
This is very exciting technology of the modern patient and physician. As more patients have learned to use the Internet, electronic devices, and apps to monitor their health, and as hospitals and clinics are using more EMR’s, the rise of such technologies is naturally the next step. Nevertheless, the medical community should have conversations about the pros and cons, in preparation for what is to come.
Pros:
1. Patient control of own care: The phone case EKG is definitely a powerful tool that will save a lot of patients’ time and lives, especially regarding visiting the hospital/clinic because something has gone wrong in the vitals, or preventing a visit that is not useful.
2. Physician monitoring: When patient devices are monitored by physicians, which they may be in the future, the data they collect will be useful in seeing what the patients’ vitals are like even when they are not in the hospital. This allows for even better tailored treatment, since the physician gets to see a more holistic picture of their patients condition and symptoms.
Cons:
1. Device malfunction: However, having a device that sometimes malfunctions and/or produces incorrect readings could also induce stress for both physician and patient. In order to be considered a device usable by the general public, the device needs to pass all human factors/ergonomics and quality assurance tests to insure that the chance of error is very low.
2. Physician overload: Data collected from patients at home with such phone case monitors may be overwhelming for physicians. It would be important to have a good sorting system of data on the physician end.
3. Over-reliance: Another thing to emphasize with any patient that uses such a device is that it is only a supplementary tool, and that if the patient feels something is wrong even though the device does not show it, warrants a visit with the doctor. In this way, physicians do not lose touch with their patients and miss something that could be crucial.
I am very optimistic of what electronic devices can do for the future of medicine, and by keeping in mind the problems that can surface, we will be able to ensure the success of such ingenious technology.
The approval of this type of technology is certainly exciting news for doctors and patients interested in real-time data, and is a huge leap forward towards the “superconvergence” of medical information as described by Topol in The Creative Destruction of Medicine. Along with this leap forward, comes a host of consequences to consider. Topol raises a number of questions about this type of device that I agree with, including limited physical interaction with patients, security of data issues, and a tendency to treat the data instead of the patient.
These issues all stem from the large quantity of information that these types of devices provide doctors with. There may be a feeling that the data itself is a basis for treatment, and that an in-person appointment would be redundant. This leads to limited face-to-face interaction and to fixing the data instead of the person. Security is also a concern as phones are frequently lost and wireless networks are notorious for a lack of security.
If these issues can be fixed, then I too am very excited for this product and those similar to it that will be developed in the future. Real-time monitoring has the possibility of saving many lives by alerting both the patient and their health care provider of a dangerous change in vital signs. As a young individual who is planning to join the medical profession, this type of device particularly interests me and I look forward to seeing if it becomes popular.
I am very excited for the new technology. Overcoming the tendency to think of Smartphones as inefficient, fraudulent devices which don’t amount to medical apparatus is possible thanks to FDA regulations. However, most of the health Apps are… not regulated. In order for the technology devices to be successfully used they need to be combined with appropriate software, not only good, but also creative and accredited. We knew before that there is the technology out there to make the medical revolution of wireless medicine possible, but there are not enough systems through which the technology can be effectively delivered. Wireless medicine can be possible if the Software is developed in ways that enable patients to successfully read, understand and communicate the information they receive. Also, there is an issue in such external technologies as iPhone case. Developing medical technology devices that specifically fit only one model of the phone is not going to be the most convenient way to merge wireless medicine with the everyday use of a Smartphone. Although over 80% of Americans do have Smartphone, a greatly lower number is the people who own the newest iPhones. Technologies using microchips or other biosensors which can be embodied in the phone regardless of the model and type seem to be more sophisticated way of introducing these technologies. Maybe soon we will introduce the practice of biosensors to both patient and doctor worlds through wireless medicine solutions similar as proposed by Eric Topol in the “Creative Destruction of Medicine”.