Auto-Doc?

[yakers]

When do you think it is coming and what will it look like? I think the term was coined by science fiction writer Larry Niven, something like the Star Trek tricorder. I think of it like the ATM that has pretty much replaced the bank for common transactions. When do you think we will have some simple medical sensors hooked up to our computer at home or at Walgreens that will analyze much , much more than blood pressure? It would have a full blood scan, maybe a EKG and more. An algorithm would diagnose most issues and only call in a live doctor when something out of pattern surfaces. I am sure the military have versions of this already but this could help in poor countries and maybe lower medicare costs here.

 

[donheff]

I think we will start seeing things moving in this direction within the next couple of decades. Not quite a Tricorder but lots of inexpensive tests involving DNA, blood chemistry, etc. The changes will be gradual and only looking back will we realize how much things have changed.

Of course, after the coming world-wide economic collapse we may not even have a health care system.

 

[GregLee]

When do you think it is coming and what will it look like?

I predict within 10 years we'll have a standardization of medical profiles with consumer-level instruments capable of adding data on simple blood analysis, bp, ekg. 20 years will give us automatic means of prescribing drugs. The auto-doc that can perform surgeries, I say, will never come. It might be technically feasible some day, but it will always too expensive, as compared to the eventual development of transferring personalities into immortal robot bodies.

 

[Nords]

I'm trying to think of the most important medical advance in the last 10-20 years.

It may be robotic & arthroscopic surgery, but I wonder how that compares to evidence-based medicine.

 

[GregLee]

... but I wonder how that compares to evidence-based medicine.

I agree that evidence-based medicine is very important, but I don't know that it counts as a development, exactly. The term "evidence-based" is recent, but I think that main-stream medicine has actually been evidence-based for over a century, and the term "evidence-based" has come into vogue to distinguish traditional rational medicine from the recent alternative/new-age know-nothing-ism.

 

[tjscott0]

Much cardiac medicine practiced today isn't based on evidence that such treatment is effective & beneficial to the patient.

TMF: Re: A doc's solutions to health care / Retire Early CampFIRE

‪Nortin Hadler Interview - Coronary Bypass and Angioplasty‬‏ - YouTube

I expect the medical professional to fight third party imposed evidence based-evidence medicine tooth & nail.

 

[landover]

I hope with electronic medical records it would be easier to mine the data and get the effectiveness data out faster and cheaper. And also for some it will be easier to draw any conclusion that suits them with little tweaking here and there.

I agree that evidence-based medicine is very important, but I don't know that it counts as a development, exactly.

 

[eytonxav]

Will it also dispense Rx's?

 

[braumeister]

I would like one as an attachment to my orgasmaton.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orgasmatron