With public medical systems across the developed world floundering thanks to insufficient funding and a graying population base, it’s becoming increasingly clear the old model of government-supported healthcare is headed for crisis. While this has caused alarm not dissimilar from that of “peak oil,” we have seen a subsequent upswell in the number of technologies promising to revolutionize the way we practice medicine and making it sustainable for the future. In line with this trend, researchers at John Hopkins School of Medicine released a paper in the September issue of the Annals of Biomedical Engineering revealing that they are in the final stages of perfecting a handheld device called MouthLab that would enable hospital-level vital sign analysis to be done from home without the supervision of medical specialists.
The MouthLab device has been referred to as a “check engine light” for the human body, with the potential to greatly cut down on the number of unnecessary ambulance trips and emergency room visits when a patient’s vital signs are good. While the current version of the gadget is capable of assessing four vital sign indicators, as well as blood oxygen levels, future versions are slated to include capabilities that would include saliva biochemical analysis, blood sugar levels, respiration biochemical analysis and metabolic rate. This is where the device begins to sound suspiciously like the tricorder of Star Trek.
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