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The Future of Rural Health Care

Earlier this month I gave a presentation to the Kansas Hospital Association on the topic of “the future of rural health care.” In my presentation, I discussed how the cellphone will become an increasingly important tool in helping patients diagnose certain diseases quicker and more accurately. (I briefly touch on this theme in this old post.)

What I did not discuss was how the cellphone might also help health care workers in remote, rural areas take high-resolution images of a patient’s blood cells using a cellphone camera and then transmit those photos to experts at medical centers.

As this informative article from today’s Technology Review discusses, however, this vision is now on the verge of being achieved thanks to the innovative work of researchers at the University of California.

When thinking about the potential of this technology there are two things to keep in mind. First, the prototype equipment was built for $75 using off-the-shelf components—so it is not expensive. Secondly, the resolution on higher-end cellphones is sufficient for capturing the details needed to identify blood cells and cancer cells. In other words, the technology is good enough to be implemented now. (One immediate application might be to help Leukemia patients in remote areas transmit images for white blood cell counts).

Longer-term, I would remind rural health care professional that the resolution on next generation cellphones is only going to get better. When one then further considers the advances in bandwidth capability which will be achieved through programs such as Internet2, it will soon become possible to transmit even more detailed health care information in the future.

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Mayo Clinic Has Got Some Game
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Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, public speaker and host of jumpthecurve.net. He is the author of seven books, including Jump the Curve and The Next Big Thing is Really Small: How Nanotechnology Will Change the Future of Your Business. He is also a frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.

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