The entire article is 9 pages of well-reasoned scenarios involve wireless devices galore, dynamic health monitoring and remote doctor consultation. Some of the technology looks to be lifted from Star Trek, but most of the ideas could be implemented tomorrow, should someone bankroll the cash, time and necessary legislation. (Keep in mind, US healthcare won't even acknowledge devices as practical as the iPhone.)

My personal favorite idea was this Smart Mirror (and not just for the PG-level cartoon nudity). It's a touchscreen monitor that can track most vitals through your hand. But it does a lot more, from listing your recent exercises to tracking your sleep patterns to performing bi-weekly body scans to test for melanoma.

From these short, daily checks, a doctor is left with a ton of analyzable trend data (surely software could be employed to summarize trends) that's potentially more reliable than general self-reporting. The user is left with a mirror on their bathroom wall—something they had in the first place.

Very cool stuff. [Fast Company]

Proloquo2Go is a text-to-speech iPhone app that's meant to aid those with autism, cerebral palsy, ALS, Down Syndrome—pretty much anyone who has a disability that makes speaking a difficult venture. It costs $150.

But Medicare/Medicaid restrictions won't pay for this software or the accompanying iPhone because the iPhone is not a uni-functional device. (A person with autism might play games on it, after all! Or call a doctor!)

One family's alternative, as documented by the NYTimes, is a government-funded $8000 desktop computer that can have no other function than text-to-speech. No emailing doctors. No browsing the web for medical research. So, this pricey clunker sits at home while the family pays out of pocket for the iPhone app that can operate in their real, mobile life.

Medicare acknowledges the situation. They have heard of the iPhone, as they explain in their official statement on the matter: "We would not cover the iPhones and netbooks with speech-generating software capabilities because they are useful in the absence of an illness or injury."

But with the nation's eyes on our healthcare policies, there's never been a better time to reassess such archaic thinking. All things equal, a company like Apple or RIM will always make superior hardware to that of some boutique electronics company, and they'll do so for pennies on the dollar. Even more importantly, these better distributed hardware platforms will be rewarded with greater enthusiasm and expertise from software designers—the real innovators in today's design-heavy electronics industry.

I'm no health care expert, but it's obvious that reform in this sector would be a win-win. Taxpayers would save money. Government programs would aid more individuals. And those being helped would simply be helped better, with more options and ultimately in a way more specific to their particular problem.

But the government can't subsidize a semi-open platform that would drive both technological innovation and market competition. That's crazy talk! [Proloquo2Go and NYTimes]

In a New York Times op-ed piece, Dr. Anne Armstrong-Coben expresses concern that the modernization of medical records may not be as obviously beneficial as it seems. For one thing, there's no unified system yet, and the likeliest candidate (Google Health) isn't subject to the now-outdated Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the national privacy statute. Creating an easy-to-learn and effective system is a huge undertaking, from construction to installation to training, and not everybody is confident it can be done properly.

A buggy or confusing system could result in more mistakes, not less, as Dr. Armstrong-Coben points out. "I have seen how choosing the wrong box can lead to the wrong drug being prescribed," she writes. Older generations of doctors may have trouble adjusting to a totally digital system, and there are bound to be mistakes made by even the computer-savvy before digitization becomes ubiquitous.

On the other hand, Dr. Armstrong-Coben complains that full digitization may make the doctor-patient relationship less personal, a point not likely to hold much water with digitization proponents. The potential money and lives saved far outweigh the loss. She reminisces, "I loved how patients could participate in their own charts - illustrating their cognitive development as they went from showing me how they could draw a line at age 2 and a circle at 3 to proudly writing their names at 5." Unclear, however, is why she can't just keep a notebook in which her young pediatric patients can draw.

Obama's plan will cost about $100 billion, a huge chunk of the stimulus package, but some experts claim it will save two to three times that yearly. Those savings could go toward universal health care or simply flow back into the hospitals for better equipment.

Doctors like Armstrong-Coben bring up an interesting point: this is a new frontier and a massive project, and it won't be as simple as handing doctors a new iMac and watching the savings roll in. But it's a necessary step; just because it's going to be hard doesn't mean it's not worth the effort. [NY Times and CNN]

Many skin cancers are currently treated by a combo of light and drugs (called photodynamic therapy), but current light sources are large and the therapy requires lengthy hospital visits. Lumicure Ltd. Is looking to use OLEDs in the treatment instead.

The OLEDs would be attached to sticking plaster that can be placed on the diseased skin. Not only will it be more comfortable, the patient could possibly do the therapy from home. Lumicure says it'll have the device out by Q4 of 2009, and that they're working on something similar to treat acne as well. [Printed Electronics via OLED info]

And the remote bear can also be moved by you, which opens up the chance for the possibility of remote-controlled cuddles. It may, at this point, help to remember the bear's intended for uses in places like hospitals, and in early-learning applications.

It's the latest version of a device that MIT's Personal Robots Group has been working on for a while, and as you can see it's a research device so it's not exactly wonderfully cuddly at the mo. Still, the group's working on a refined version that'll be used in real-life human-computer interaction experiments. [MIT via BotJunkie]

Besides all the physiological monitoring tools, the MedEx 1000 also has a data storage and transmission system, a control-and-display unit, hot-swappable batteries, ethernet connectivity and the ability to connect to other devices. Initial deliveries are coming the first quarter of 2009. Prices weren't immediately available, but I'm assuming it'll be pretty cost prohibitive for anyone who wants one “just in case.” [LStat via Oh Gizmo]

The chip is much more precise than the finger pricking method for monitoring blood, and in diabetes sufferers, can minimize the risk of complications like blindness and kidney failure. The first glucose-monitoring and osteoporosis drug-releasing chips will begin human clinical trials next year. MicroCHIPS is looking into developing more advanced versions that can predict heart or kidney failure, biodegrade in the body, and release multiple vaccine or drug doses over time. [Popsci]

Most recently, HealthMap detected the salmonella outbreak in the U.S., which has sickened over 1,000 people, long before the Center for Disease Control announced that it was happening. By alerting officials and doctors to the most likely diseases in their area, the web tool could help make health care much more efficient and precise. [Discovery]

Information gathered by the Health Guide is then encrypted and sent to the patient's health care professional using Intel's Health Care Management Suite, which is supposedly secure enough to handle sensitive patient records.

By shifting a lot of the effort of monitoring patients with chronic health problems out of the hospital and into the home, Intel says insurance and health care companies can save money and give better, more personalized care. The Intel Health Guide is expected to be commercially available from health care providers either late 2008 or early 2009. [Crunchgear]

Cooper, 79, who since leaving Motorola has run now runs a company called ArrayComm and was instrumental in developing the Jitterbug old people's phone, gripes that the embeds will only come when society and industry shape up:

• "People are really conservative," he says, explaining why subcutaneous electronics may not be tantalizing to your mom.

• Phone features need to get simplier. Today's shoddy interfaces explain how much more development is needed before thought controls are feasible.

• Companies, including Motorola, don't take enough risks any more. "People thought I was crazy thinking about a phone you can just put in your pocket." [Reuters]

Selanikio points to one example where EpiSurveyor has already been a great benefit: the Zambian Health Ministry. They used the software to conduct their first-ever malaria survey and were able to reorganize shipments of medicine to villages that were in need of it within weeks. In addition to donations for the project, Dr. Selanikio is most in need of help building a sustainable business model to keep this revolutionary idea going. If you have the experience and would like to help, visit the site and get in touch. [EpiSurveyor via BBG]

For every patient, Motiva monitors ongoing health status, usage patterns and regularly queries patients about changes in their knowledge, motivation and confidence levels - insights nurses can use to adapt care plans and gauge impact on long-term behavior...

Nothing says "great mother's day present" like looking out for your mom's health!

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Motiva is Watching You [Medgadget]

Faced with both a rapidly-aging long-lived population and a declining birth rate, and much more hesitant to open its borders to immigrants like other countries with the same problems, Japan is looking to robotics as a solution to caring for its many elderly citizens.

RI-MAN is a five-foot tall humanoid robot built to carry human beings. It's equipped with sensors to keep track of a body's weight and position, can distinguish between eight different smells and the direction a voice is coming from, as well as track the movement of a face.

Aging Japan builds robot to look after elderly [Yahoo! News]