X-Prize wants to bring the medical tricorder from Star Trek to life.

[Semnae]

X-Prize is shelling out $10 million to the first company that can "develop a mobile solution that can diagnose patients better than or equal to a panel of board certified physicians."

Today in the developed world, preventable medical errors in hospitals result in tens of thousands of deaths per year; preventable medication errors occur at least 1.5 million times per year; and, on average, adults receive only half of recommended care. In the developing world, billions of people have no access to medical care. The Tricorder X PRIZE will award $10 million to the team that develops a mobile solution that can inexpensively diagnose patients by combining expert systems and medical point-of-care data—such as lab-on-a-chip or wireless sensors, provide a recommended course of treatment, and upload all relevant data to the cloud. The prize aims to incentivize consumer empowerment in healthcare by extending the reach of health information and services to more people. As a result, seven billion people around the world can have access to low-cost, reliable, medical diagnostics, which will ultimately prevent pandemics and save lives.

Sounds interesting. I wonder how this would effect the health care debate.

[kitamesume]

is this true? seriously? smells like a hoax.

anyway, it takes an MRI machine to scan a brain, an X-Ray machine to scan bones and so on, not to mention they're as big as your bedroom. if they want an all-in-one scanner thats at a size of a magazine, they'll be looking for a 50+ years of waiting.

[Semnae]

No hoax. The X-Prize is famous for granting awards to people who make the impossible possible. In fact, that's all they do. They exist to promote scientific development. They are best known for handing out a huge reward upon the completion of Spaceship 1.

In this case, what they are looking for is something they can add to your phone.  Most people in the US already carry a mobile device, so they want to add medical capability.

[kitamesume]

theoretically, its still impossible, the machine needed to scan yourself of sickness is as big as a parking lot(if you include everything) or as big as a 4passanger car. thats why hospitals and institutes are HUGE!

if its a question and answer sickness scan then its possible, like it`ll ask what do you feel, which part hurts and comes up with a conclusion on which sickness you have.

Note: i Troll, "How To Troubleshoot a human body" or HTTaHB.

[rostheferret]

If this ever got into development, it'll either end up charging you for diagnostic apps or it'll give you the blue screen when something's wrong with the patient.

[Lupin]

theoretically, its still impossible, the machine needed to scan yourself of sickness is as big as a parking lot(if you include everything) or as big as a 4passanger car. thats why hospitals and institutes are HUGE!

if its a question and answer sickness scan then its possible, like it`ll ask what do you feel, which part hurts and comes up with a conclusion on which sickness you have.

Note: i Troll, "How To Troubleshoot a human body" or HTTaHB.

This is not impossible. Hard but not impossible.

Anyone attempting at this will have to solve the problem of what body part to scan. Scanning the whole body is ridiculous. The device have to be small enough that anyone can have it. I don't think X-Price expects the device to identify every known disease, just the common/easily identifiable ones.

There's one part of the human body that I think manifests the condition of the body: eyes

[rkruger]

I don't think X-Price expects the device to identify every known disease, just the common/easily identifiable ones.

If they are easy to identify, is it then even necessary to use a "machine" to accomplish this I wonder?

There's one part of the human body that I think manifests the condition of the body: eyes

Interesting. At least the eyes will reveal if the "patient" is affected by certain foreign substances. 
According to ancient Chinese medicine, much can be discovered by simply touching the hands of the patient.

[kitamesume]

get a shaman call center up and running then people would just call up and ask "what the hell is my sickness!?" seriously, a question and answer troubleshooting guide is the best solution to integrate into the cellphone for the "cheapest" diagnosis. even my mom knows what sickness i have just by asking how do i feel. Trololol for the "Human Body Troubleshooting Guide".

[Lupin]

I don't think X-Price expects the device to identify every known disease, just the common/easily identifiable ones.

If they are easy to identify, is it then even necessary to use a "machine" to accomplish this I wonder?

Verification perhaps?

get a shaman call center up and running then people would just call up and ask "what the hell is my sickness!?" seriously, a question and answer troubleshooting guide is the best solution to integrate into the cellphone for the "cheapest" diagnosis. even my mom knows what sickness i have just by asking how do i feel. Trololol for the "Human Body Troubleshooting Guide".

you're just posting crap just like you always do. you don't even know anything. go away

[rkruger]

Verification perhaps?

Yes, that's probably the most practical solution.

But anyway, the price will probably be handed to IBM soon:
http://ibm-news.tmcnet.com/ibm/articles/145887-ibm-watson-computer-will-soon-help-diagnose-patients.htm
Or whoever writes that missing app to link Watson and a shiny iPhone together.

[ph4zr]

More realistic would be having it host a DB used for differential diagnosis. In which case it could use any readings it gets from the body, or responses to questions, to rule out the unlikely and offer a probable diagnosis. Since no system is infallible, it would need to track answers so that "unrelated" issues could be tentatively removed from the differential.

However, the actual readings you could get from a handheld device would, I imagine, be limited to things like heat, color, and sound. More generally, most forms of radiation/EM waves, vibration, or magnetism, as relevant. So I guess body temperature, infections, discoloration, lungs and pulse, would be the most easily checked.
Disclaimer: /I have zero medical knowledge.

[kitamesume]

ehhh, theres a call-checkup that you could say your symptoms through the phone, usually hospital does this regularly and doctors, sometimes does it as well during basic physical examination, asking you "how do you feel, any headaches? chestpain? or anything that makes you feel uncomfortable?" and follows up an actual examination based on the person's complain, if its stomach pain then a stool test is suggested, if its chestpain then more likely an X-Ray test is suggested.

if they could actually implement a question and answer diagnosis, they could save hospitals some trouble of answering the phone too much, or if the people could just remember the symptoms and the solution for them, they could just do self medication if the sickness isnt that much worrying.

i`ve been to the hospital for alot of time, dengue fever, teh flu(mom was paranoid that it was teh H1N1), some days that i get a fever of 39c+, vaccines some times in a year, regular monthly check-ups and some accidents as well.

[mgz]

is this true? seriously? smells like a hoax.

anyway, it takes an MRI machine to scan a brain, an X-Ray machine to scan bones and so on, not to mention they're as big as your bedroom. if they want an all-in-one scanner thats at a size of a magazine, they'll be looking for a 50+ years of waiting.

if you read what he wrote its diagnose a patient as well as a medical panel.

IE if you went to the doctor prior to the tests. Which would mean it would probably have to utilize camera for analyzing and comparing rashes and markings with symptom list as well as all kinds of symptoms in some sort of kinda easy to use check list like function that slowly narrows down your likely disease.


Think of it like a better easier webmd app

[NaRu]

also the power needed to run these scans. They are smoking if they think any battery is produce that much power.

The only thing I can think of that will be useful is to have a chip scanner in the phone. You place a chip inside a person and this chip keeps track of your vitals. Anyone using a phone can see your vitals just by being near the person.

[kitamesume]

thats more expensive than doing the actual scan, imho the identification chip implant costs more than a  hundred dollars.

[ph4zr]

also the power needed to run these scans. They are smoking if they think any battery is produce that much power.

Not necessarily. The specs seem to indicate the device needs to do this on its own, but if that wasn't required they could offload the actual data processing to a server set up for that purpose.

Thermometers, even the non-touch IR ones, read temperature data without needing a battery change every five seconds, and obviously phones these days are more than capable of taking pictures and receiving and transmitting sound data for hours* at a time. For things like X-rays or MRIs, even if we could stick it in a tiny package**, I'm not sure you'd want to due to the radiation/magnetism.

*Just how many hours really depends on how crappy the battery is... -Evo4G rage-
**Why not? Add an attachment for the imaging aspect, that you wouldn't need to carry around all the time.

thats more expensive than doing the actual scan, imho the identification chip implant costs more than a  hundred dollars.

Maybe, since it serves a specialized function, but I doubt they'd need to if they went into mass production. An iPod only costs a couple hundred bucks. You can get pretty cheap mobos, too. And, obviously storage is cheap as dirt at the flash level. A single chip, even if it has to be bio-safe and able to emit a readable signal, shouldn't have to cost more than that. /IM(non tech-savvy)O

[kitamesume]

they should actually learn how to do ancient martial arts(teh scientists duh) and learn how to read life forces, attach a bracelet that reads your life force and voala, you got your self a first-person-shooter style hp indicator.

other than that, thermo scanner, pulse & blood pressure scanner and breath scanner(the ones used on drunk peoples to see how drunk he/she is and integrate a bacteria density detector to see how sick the person is(effective on the common cold)) these are the only ones that i could think of that`ll fit a cellphone without that much battery drain.