Week 4 - Hardware & Privacy

When designing the Medical Detector (hereafter referred to as the ‘MD’) it is vitally important to keep in mind both the size and capabilities of the device. Fortunately CPU’s, RAM, Video Card’s and other aspects of the devise have already been developed in the size necessary to keep the ‘MD’ small enough to fit in your pocket or pocket book. Processor speed fast enough to read and deliver results in seconds is crucial to the success of the ‘MD as there may be life or death situations when the ‘MD’ is depended on for recommended action.

Once a scan has been performed, owners will be able to take their ‘MD’ to the nearest Doctor, clinic, or hospital where medical service providers will be able to view results of the scan.  High quality video cards will show images of the scanned area, and high frequency sound cards will emit sounds of the recorded heart rhythm captured during the scan. If necessary, this information can be downloaded to external recording devises such as memory cards, cd’s or DVD’s, to be sent off, or otherwise transmitted, to specialists for further diagnosis and treatment recommendations.

Overall, the ‘MD’ could be relatively easy to develop because the necessary hardware and technology already exists, simply not for this specific purpose and target audience. The software also exists, it just has to be modified to serve the purpose of the ‘MD’ and have certain privacy protections installed to protect the confidentiality of this sensitive information.

While I still think there are a lot of very sensitive issues associated with developing and selling a ‘MD’ device to the public, the more I blog about this idea, the more I believe in the necessity for such a devise. I also believe that in a day and age when more and more hardware and technology are being developed to make our lives easier, ability to perform tasks faster and ability to communicate both easier and faster, I strongly believe a devise that would help us be healthier and live longer should be at the top of SOMEBODY’S list for development.

Week 3 - Spreadsheet Essentials - Excel

So here we go. On to chapter 2 of 'Images You Can Use', based on the idea that we would all benefit from the use of an IPad or Iphone sized medical detector, a device that would scan an area of our body and show an x-ray type image, give a diagnosis and make treatment recommendations and website references for further research, and recommend specialists in the area for treatment.

The Excel spreadsheet essentials lesson during week 3 lecture 2, gave me some ideas on how medical professionals all over the world could track and document the use of the medical detector, its efficiency and effectiveness, and where changes need to be made to make it more beneficial to the general public.

Excel is a perfect program to track the use of the medical detector. The device could be programmed so every time a person uses it, they would have to input information such as their gender, age, geographical location, type of medical emergency, recommendations made by the medical device and whether or not that information was accurate, relevant and helpful. All kinds of additional information could be required each time the medical detector is used and that information would be stored in a central system available to medical professionals all over the world so they could see how the device was being used.

The simple use of formula’s and functions would show results on the accuracy of diagnosis, what sources were recommended and what actions were taken. This information could then be color coded and graphed for easy review using the charts and illustrations. Using the sort and filter function, the date could be sorted by city, county or state, or even regionally by states or countries. The filter could also show what type of emergencies were being reported, in what parts of the country or world, and which of those had a higher success rate of treatment and why.

Information gathered could be ranked according to seriousness of injury, color coded to highlight correct and incorrect predictions, number of similar conditions, number of incidents per city/state and overall outcomes as a result of having the device.

By using the ‘get external data’ function, information for other medical reporting sources could be calculated against information received from the medical detector to compare results and highlight valuable resources.

Using Excel as a data reporting resource could significantly increase the medical professions knowledge of medical history around the world if every home owner had a medical detector and used it to input information about their use of the device.

Initial idea for Images I believe You Can Use...

How many times have you fallen ill, suffered a fall or experienced some other form of injury that sent you running to the emergency room only to discover it was a minor issue but now you have a $25,000 hospital bill to pay? And if you have children, have you ever rushed them to the doctor’s office, taking time away from work or other activities, only to be told it’s just an ear ache, or bruised ego, or a splinter in your child’s finger?

I think it is about time every household had access to a ‘medical detector’ that would allow you to scan the area of concern on your body, and get a read out, in the form of an image or text, of how extensive the injury is. Just as the defibrillator became available to the general public because of its life saving abilities, I believe an electronic medical detector would save thousands of dollars and thousands of hours of wasted resources.

When moms, dads, coach’s, nurses and anyone else who has access to the ‘medical detector’, a device the size of an IPad, or an IPhone, they can then visit online medical resources to make informed decisions about rushing to the emergency room or administering two aspirin to remedy the situation. *Searching the web provides specific information, including text, pictures and video on practically any topic. Users of the ‘medical detector’ can **Google, Bing, Ask or use any other website search engine to research the medical detectors diagnosis and administer minor treatments, or rush off to the doctor’s office based on their finding’s.

Since the average website user ***typically only uses two to three words in their text search, the ‘medical detector’ could also offer few words in its diagnosis, making it possible to offer more than one possible diagnosis and recommendation. More and more, people are ****publishing information on the web to share their experiences, success stories, adventures and just about anything you can think of. It would be nice to read online publications about lives being saved because time was of the essence and the ‘medical detector’ was available as an invaluable resource.

Of course certain precautions, disclaimers and other protective measures would have to be put into place however, we are becoming a society that wants information now and more and more, industry is finding ways to provide it. It is probably a short matter of time before you will be able to purchase your ‘medical detector’ at a retailer near you.

Discovering Computers by Shelly Cashman Series

*Pg 85 – Searching the Web  

**Pg 85 – Widely Used Search Tools

***Pg 88 – FAQ 2-4 Search Text Length

*** Pg 98 – Web publishing