The doctor will see you now—inside your own bathroom.
That’s the concept behind a proposed product from design consultancy Teague. The idea is for a “doctor-in-a-box” service that consumers could pick up at their local drugstore and set up using their Wi-Fi service at home. The kit, which Teague dreamed up in response to a call for innovative ideas from Fast Company magazine, would consist of just two components.
Here’s how the magazine’s Co.Design blog puts it: “One piece is like a smart stethoscope, capable of hearing your heart or lungs, but also peeking into your ear with a fiber optic light and taking high-definition images on the surface of your skin. The second piece is a teleconferencing camera that sticks to your mirror.”
The camera would have motion-tracking capabilities similar to that of Microsoft‘s Kinect, and the kit would also be able to collect heart rate and temperature readings (the blog does not describe exactly how).
I asked Kenneth Kleinberg, who tracks the health-care industry for research, technology and consulting firm The Advisory Board Co., whether he thinks such a service will make its way into reality within the next five to 10 years. After all, telemedicine devices—such as an advanced stethoscope that has wireless capability allowing a doctor to hear a patient’s heartbeat remotely—are already being tested and used in clinical settings. In fact, Thinklabs‘ Bluetooth-enabled digital stethoscope has been used to treat Ebola patients, since its ear-bud headphones can be worn under a protective suit, while conventional stethoscopes would not work ergonomically.)
Likewise, health-care providers are working on products that employ motion-tracking technology similar to that of the Kinect. Putting it all together in a bathroom mirror would be a novel approach (if not claustrophobia-inducing for those with small powder rooms).
Kleinberg notes that there would be regulatory hurdles that a home health-care provider would need to clear in order to make Teague’s imagined doctor-in-a-box product a reality. However, he adds, none of that would be a deal-breaker.
That just leaves one question: Would patients and doctors use this? If the patient suspects she has a contagious illness, this type of telemedicine could go a long way toward keeping her and her germs outside of waiting rooms. Co.Design notes that it could also be very handy to use while traveling abroad, far from your own doctor and, perhaps, anyone who speaks your language.
But it would also take a certain level of trust in the technology—both by the doctor and the patient. It’s just a guess, but the Millennials-and-younger set (digital natives) seem most primed to put their faith in a video conference to not only convey accurate data, but also allow a doctor to fully “read” patients—not just their physical health statistics, but also their emotional health.
In addition, the medical community still has a long way to go on the tech front. Or maybe providers of electronic health records have a long way to go. Either way, there is plenty of dissatisfaction in the medical ranks regarding electronic records—not to mention the fact that they do not prevent mistakes. Case in point: the story of a wrongly dosed antibiotic that landed a young boy in an ICU.
I recently saw my doctor for a periodic exam, and when she entered the examining room, she sat down and gently and very seriously asked: “How are you doing? I know when you were here last, you were having some serious troubles.”
I stared back at her blankly, trying to remember what sort of troubles I might have been having last time I was there. “Are you sure you have the right patient?” I asked.
“O’Connor, right?”
“Yes,” I said, as she clicked her computer screen, searching the records.
It turns out, there was a “little red dot” next to my name that wasn’t supposed to be there.
I have no idea what that dot meant, but I hope it now appears in the correct patient’s records. And I hope she has overcome whatever troubles the doctor referenced.
Technology and health care, it seems, are still a work-in-progress.
Mary Catherine O’Connor is the editor of Internet of Things Journal and a former staff reporter for RFID Journal. She also writes about technology, as it relates to business and the environment, for a range of consumer magazines and newspapers.