Note: The inclusion of items featured on this page are not, and are not intended as, an endorsement and should not be interpreted as such.
The intent is informational only. Items will be rotated out on a regular basis onto an archival page.
Updated May 5, 2011
Olivera Markovic, M.D., Ph.D.: Telecytopathology Research and mHealth Application (a follow up to a previous Technology Watch)
Part 1
Part 2
Mobisante
(Video taken at 2010 mHealth Summit with permission of David M. Zar, CTO of MobiSante.)
MIT Media Lab
"We're going to make the future."
"A short film about the Media Lab by award-winning documentary filmmaker Jesse Dylan/FreeForm. Click here to access home page and video."
LabCAST #48 NETRA
"MIT Media Lab researchers have created a quick, simple, and inexpensive way to use mobile phones to measure refractive errors of the eye, including nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism, and age-related vision loss. Until now, these measurements have only been possible using specialized equipment operated by a trained professional." Click here to access page and video.
LabCAST
#46 iCalm
"iCalm is a small, wearable, wireless sensor platform for long-term sensing of physiological information along with low-cost connectivity to consumer devices. It has many possible applications, including customer-experience data gathering, health monitoring, and education for those seeking to learn about their own internal physiological changes during daily life." Click here to access page and video.
LabCAST #45 FaceSense
"People express and communicate their mental states—such as emotions, thoughts, and desires—through facial expressions, vocal nuances, gestures, and other non-verbal channels. FaceSense is a tool for analyzing, tagging, and making inferences about cognitive-affective mental states from facial video." Click here to access page and video.
LabCAST #43 New Media Medicine
"The New Media Medicine research group believes that it’s time for a power shift in health care. As a society, we have dramatically underestimated the power of ordinary people to transform the system, to take care of their own health, to help develop therapies, and to help solve massive public health problems. We are working on technologies that will enable radical new collaborations between doctors, patients and communities." Click here to access page and video.
(Above photos provided courtesy of Aydogan Ozcan, PhD, Assistant Professor, UCLA)
"Cost-effective and compact wide-field fluorescent imaging on a cell-phone." Hongying Zhu, Oguzhan Yaglidere, Ting-Wei Su, Derek Tseng and Aydogan Ozcan Lab Chip, 2011, Advance Article
Abstract
"We demonstrate wide-field fluorescent and darkfield imaging on a cell-phone with compact, light-weight and cost-effective optical components that are mechanically attached to the existing camera unit of the cell-phone. For this purpose, we used battery powered light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to pump the sample of interest from the side using butt-coupling, where the pump light was guided within the sample cuvette to uniformly excite the specimen. The fluorescent emission from the sample was then imaged using an additional lens that was positioned right in front of the existing lens of the cell-phone camera. Because the excitation occurs through guided waves that propagate perpendicular to our detection path, an inexpensive plastic colour filter was sufficient to create the dark-field background required for fluorescent imaging, without the need for a thin-film interference filter. We validate the performance of this platform by imaging various fluorescent micro-objects in 2 colours (i.e., red and green) over a large field-of-view (FOV) of 81 mm2 with a raw spatial resolution of 20 μm. With additional digital processing of the captured cell-phone images, through the use of compressive sampling theory, we demonstrate 2 fold improvement in our resolving power, achieving 10 μm resolution without a trade-off in our FOV. Further, we also demonstrate darkfield imaging of non-fluorescent specimen using the same interface, where this time the scattered light from the objects is detected without the use of any filters. The capability of imaging a wide FOV would be exceedingly important to probe large sample volumes (e.g., >0.1 mL) of e.g., blood, urine, sputum or water, and for this end we also demonstrate fluorescent imaging of labeled white-blood cells from whole blood samples, as well as water-borne pathogenic protozoan parasites such as Giardia Lamblia cysts. Weighing only 28 g (1 ounce), this compact and cost-effective fluorescent imaging platform attached to a cell-phone could be quite useful especially for resource-limited settings, and might provide an important tool for wide-field imaging and quantification of various lab-on-a-chip assays developed for global health applications, such as monitoring of HIV+ patients for CD4 counts or viral load measurements."
Video conferencing and web conferencing technology are being used to improve the efficiency of medical service delivery, education and CME, and are becoming mainstream telehealth tools. VeaMea, based in McLean, VA has implemented this system in a hospital system serving multiple satellites.
A remote diagnostic cart like the one pictured above using GlobalMedia Group’s USB Otoscope, Stethoscope and TotalExam camera) …can be used to allow a physician at a remote location to provide consultation with “hands-on” capabilities
The cart includes:
HD Quality full duplex audio (both sides can talk without waiting for the other to finish)
HD Camera with pan, tilt and zoom control
Single or double display to provide access to multiple images (e.g. EKG tape; Patient, Internist and Consulting Cardiologist Video)
Military grade encryption on all data streams
Onboard Otoscope, Stethoscope and TotalExam Camera (for extreme close-ups, looking down a throat, etc.)
Wireless internet
Battery pack
How is it used ?
Neurologists diagnose potential stroke patients remotely, allowing ERs to administer life-saving drugs sooner
Patient follow-up visits can be made without the patient needing to travel to the doctor's office
Remote pre-operative surgical consults
Surgeons report status/results to families without needing to leave the sterile environment of the operating room
Telepathology – USB microscope allows tissue sample to be “sent” to the lab without anyone needing to leave the sterile environment of the operating room
Physician consultations – express care clinics staffed by nurses or physician’s assistants can access an MD for consultation as needed
Medical residents attend classes via web conference
Rural hospital nurses attend continuing medical education classes remotely
Rural hospitals can consult specialists in urban hospital centers
Adding video conferencing enabled laptops to Ambulances and Flight-for-Life Helicopters to enable communication with ERs before the patient even arrives
Stream surgical video, record and archive for training
Rick Dinger of Global Media Viewing His Fingerprint
TotalExam is an examination camera that can provide close-up images of skin, eyes or throat. The photos show the camera with the derma-cone attachment. The piece that comes into contact with the patient is a disposable plastic collar that slips over the derma-cone’s widest opening. You would use the derma-cone for images of the skin or the eyes. The other attachment is for throat examinations. It clips on to the TotalExam at the narrowest part of the camera nearest the lens. A slot accepts a standard tongue depressor.
The camera does not auto-focus for a reason. Auto-focus cameras don’t always focus on what the physician wants to see, and they don’t do the same kind of contact close-ups TotalExam does. If you wish to focus on the raised ridge of a lesion, for example, you merely turn TotalExam to the right or left with the derma-cone against the skin to fine-focus on what you want to see.
The tongue depressor can also be used to measure for pictures 10cm or 15cm away from a patient’s skin, using the tongue depressor in the tongue depressor adapter as a distance guide.
There are three pre-set marks on TotalExam. The “one mark” is for skin or eye close-ups. The “two mark” is set for shots of the throat, and the “third mark” position is for general video of a patient two feet away to infinity.
There are only two buttons on TotalExam. The first cycles through the five onboard lights – three white temperature lights and two ultra-violet light temperatures. It automatically white balances, but it is the only camera in the world that Skin Tone Balances. This enables the practitioner to get images with good detail of patients who are dark-complected without turning on a light as bright as the sun. The other button takes a freeze frame image.
The focus adjustment is the only other control. It is the barrel part of the camera nearest to the lens.
AfterCare Text
(Image Credit: Infield Communications
Mobile + Health
www.GoInfield.com)
AfterCare Text is a texting platform where patients receive a series of text messages after they are discharged from the hospital. The messages advise patients on wellness tips specific to their condition as well as follow-up appointment reminders and hospital nurse-line information.
The goal is to help patients, and their at-home caregivers, better manage their care after discharge. Patients benefit by staying on track with appointments and wellness. Providers benefit by reducing the 30-day hospital readmission rate, which may not be reimbursed in the future. To learn more, visit www.GoInfield.com
PharmaTrust MedCenter is a remote pharmacist controlled telepharmacy system that provides patient focused care through convenient access to prescription medications as well as personalized pharmacist counseling with each dispense via live two-way audio/video conferencing. The pharmacist, assisted by the MedCenter's semi-automation, maintains complete control over the entire process and is able to remotely dispense more than 1800 different prescribed medication SKU’s right at the point of prescribing. PharmaTrust MedCenters can be utilized to serve patients within a variety of locations including, hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, employer locations, and seniors residence.
A Lens Free Telemedicine Microscope
(Image Credit: Ozcan Research Group @ UCLA)
A lens free telemedicine microscope that weighs <1.6 ounces is shown.
This microscope is powered and controlled through USB and achieves sub-cellular resolution over a large field of view of >24mm^2. For more information see Ozcan Research Group @ UCLA.
Telecytopathology
AT&T (Samsung,SGH-A867)
cell phone camera with a microscopic image on the screen CLICK here to read more
(Courtesy of BioSciCon, Inc.)
BioSciCon, Inc. is developing Mobile & IT Telehealth Center for Telecytopathology Services in the Shady Grove Innovation Center and the Johns Hopkins University, Montgomery County Campus in Rockville, MD. Exchange of microscopic images for distant diagnosis (telecytopathology) is increasingly important, since low resource areas throughout the world cannot provide diagnosis on site.
The first wide application is planned to be in cervical cancer early detection. Women are still dying of a preventable cervical cancer. There are 4,000 deaths in the US and 250,000 women die annually worldwide. BioSciCon has developed a proprietary biomarker-enhanced Pap test that is particularly amenable for telecytopathology. Abnormal cervical cells are highlighted by the red-colored biomarker and low-trained technician, or nurse in a doctor's office can recognize them and easily transmit images of suspect cells to a distant place to be diagnosed by pathologist. Transmission can be done with conventional digital camera mounted on the microscope or, most recently, BioSciCon is trying to use cell phone camera instead. To see comparisons of images captured with a digital CCD camera and images captured with a cell phone camera click on: Figures.
The Telehealth Center is designed as a modular system composed of several Image Acquisition Units (small labs and doctor offices equipped with a low cost set of instruments to acquire and transmit images), few Image Analytical Units (for evaluation) and Central Processing Unit (servers).
For more information go to: www.bioscicon.com, or e-mail: info@bioscicon.com or tel: 301-610-9130.
