(Press-News.org) Mobile health technology has substantial potential for improving access to health care in the developing world and in remote regions of developed countries, states an article in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).
In many countries, access to health care is hampered by lack of medical professionals and health care infrastructure, limited or poor equipment, sporadic power and other obstacles. However, the development of remote-presence medical devices can help fill this void by connecting people in remote locations with experienced health care professionals for real-time assessment.
Smartphones, tablets and other consumer devices are being used in health care, but applications are limited because of processing capacity, privacy issues and signal variability.
"The next step in the evolution of mobile telemedicine is the development of portable, dedicated medical communication devices capable of providing real-time remote presence and transmission of diagnostic-quality medical data from a range of peripheral diagnostic devices that will allow point-of-care therapeutic intervention," writes Dr. Ivar Mendez, University of Saskatchewan, with coauthor.
Pilot tests by the authors using a mobile-presence device in the remote Bolivian Andes mountains with pregnant women allowed an obstetrician in Halifax to monitor the baby's heartbeat, communicate with the mother and conduct a complete prenatal ultrasound with the help of an onsite nurse.
"Mobile remote-presence devices for telemedicine have the potential to change the way health care is delivered in developed and developing nations," write the authors. "The availability of cellular network signals around the globe and rapidly increasing bandwidth will provide the telecommunication platform for a wide range of mobile telemedicine applications. The use of low-cost, dedicated remote-presence devices will increase access to medical expertise for anybody living in a geographical area with a cellphone signal."
There are some barriers to implementation of these solutions, such as perceived high costs (about $25 000 for the device plus connectivity charges) as well as medical liability, patient confidentiality, physician payment and other policy issues. However, the public's appetite for these solutions and the promise they have for improving access to health care may help remove barriers for remote-presence medicine in remote communities.
"This switch from the current model of centralized diagnosis in large medical facilities to point-of-care diagnosis could dramatically increase medical efficacy by removing barriers of time and distance, reducing wait times and decreasing the cost of health care delivery," state the authors.
As the rapid advance of technology continues to transform many areas of society, the medical field will see increasingly sophisticated tools and devices to improve point-of-care diagnosis.
"Although mobile telemedicine may be applied initially to emergency situations, remote locations and the developing world, its major impact may be in the delivery of primary health care. We can envision the use of mobile remote-presence devices by allied health personnel in a wide range of scenarios, from home care visits to follow-up sessions for mental health care, in which access to medical expertise in real time would be just a phone call away," the authors conclude.
### END
Mobile health devices can improve health care access in developing countries, remote regions
2013-06-17
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Abnormalities in new molecular pathway may increase breast cancer risk
2013-06-17
PHILADELPHIA — A new molecular pathway involving the gene ZNF365 has been identified and abnormalities in that pathway may predict worse outcomes for patients with breast cancer, according to data published in Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
"Genomic instability is an increased tendency for abnormal changes in DNA, like the addition of extra copies of chromosomes, DNA breaks and mutations," said Ji-Hye Paik, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College in ...
Exposure to BPA in developing prostate increases risk of later cancer
2013-06-17
Early exposure to BPA (bisphenol A) – an additive commonly found in plastic water bottles and soup can liners – causes an increased cancer risk in an animal model of human prostate cancer, according to University of Illinois at Chicago researcher Gail Prins.
Prins presented her findings at the ENDO 2013 meeting in San Francisco June 17.
"This is the first direct evidence that exposure to BPA during development, at the levels we see in our day-to-day environment, increases the risk for prostate cancer in human prostate tissue," said Prins, professor of physiology and director ...
New 'embryonic' subduction zone found
2013-06-17
A new subduction zone forming off the coast of Portugal heralds the beginning of a cycle that will see the Atlantic Ocean close as continental Europe moves closer to America.
Published in Geology, new research led by Monash University geologists has detected the first evidence that a passive margin in the Atlantic ocean is becoming active. Subduction zones, such as the one beginning near Iberia, are areas where one of the tectonic plates that cover the Earth's surface dives beneath another plate into the mantle - the layer just below the crust.
Lead author Dr João Duarte, ...
An innovative material for the green Earth
2013-06-17
Ulsan, S. Korea, June 17, 2013 - Researchers from Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), S. Korea, developed a novel, simple method to synthesize hierarchically nanoporous frameworks of nanocrystalline metal oxides such as magnesia and ceria by the thermal conversion of well-designed metal-organic frameworks (MOFs).
The novel material developed by the UNIST research team has exceptionally high CO2 adsorption capacity which could pave the way to save the Earth from CO2 pollution.
Nanoporous materials consist of organic or inorganic frameworks with ...
Researchers unmask Janus-faced nature of mechanical forces with the Julich supercomputer
2013-06-17
The harder you pull, the quicker it goes. At least, that used to be the rule in mechanochemistry, a method that researchers apply to set chemical reactions in motion by means of mechanical forces. However, as chemists led by Professor Dominik Marx, Chair of Theoretical Chemistry at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum now report in the journal "Nature Chemistry", more force cannot in fact be translated one to one into a faster reaction. With complex molecular dynamic simulations on the Jülich supercomputer "JUQUEEN" they unmasked the Janus-faced nature of mechanochemistry. Up to ...
Jet stream changes cause climatically exceptional Greenland Ice Sheet melt
2013-06-17
Research from the University of Sheffield has shown that unusual changes in atmospheric jet stream circulation caused the exceptional surface melt of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) in summer 2012.
An international team led by Professor Edward Hanna from the University of Sheffield's Department of Geography used a computer model simulation (called SnowModel) and satellite data to confirm a record surface melting of the GrIS for at least the last 50 years - when on 11 July 2012, more than 90 percent of the ice-sheet surface melted. This far exceeded the previous surface ...
Drivers happy to take long way round to avoid traffic stress
2013-06-17
German motorists are willing to accept longer journey times and even detours if it means helping to ease the general traffic situation. This emerged from a recent user study carried out by the Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems FOKUS in cooperation with the Technische Universität Berlin. Of 120 motorists who agreed to provide information about their driving habits and attitudes towards road traffic, two-thirds said they would rather have a stress-free trip even if it meant adding over three minutes to their journey, and 75 percent said they would even be ...
Polymer-coated catalyst protects 'artificial leaf'
2013-06-17
This news release is available in German. Researchers at the HZB Institute for Solar Fuels have modified so called superstrate solar cells with their highly efficient architecture in order to obtain hydrogen from water with the help of suitable catalysts. This type of cell works something like an "artificial leaf." But the solar cell rapidly corrodes when placed in the aqueous electrolyte solution.
Now, Ph.D. student Diana Stellmach has found a way to prevent corrosion by embedding the catalysts in an electrically conducting polymer and then mounting them onto the ...
CNIC researchers find a possible treatment for one of the main symptoms of premature aging disease
2013-06-17
HGPS is a rare genetic disease that affects one in every 4-8 million births. The disease is caused by a spontaneous mutation in one of the two copies (alleles) of the gene LMNA, which codes for lamin A, a protein important for the integrity and function of the envelope surrounding the cell nucleus. The mutation causes incorrect processing of the messenger RNA for lamin proteins, resulting in the synthesis of an anomalous protein, called progerin.
The new study, published in the leading cardiovascular research journal Circulation, identifies a possible treatment to block ...
Efficient and inexpensive: Researchers develop catalyst material for fuel cells
2013-06-17
This news release is available in German. Efficient, robust and economic catalyst materials hold the key to achieving a breakthrough in fuel cell technology. Scientists from Jülich and Berlin have developed a material for converting hydrogen and oxygen to water using a tenth of the typical amount of platinum that was previously required. With the aid of state-of-the-art electron microscopy, the researchers discovered that the function of the nanometre-scale catalyst particles is decisively determined by their geometric shape and atomic structure. This discovery opens ...