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New PDA Listens To Your Heartbeat
Roland Piquepaille writes "CardioNet Inc., a company based in San Diego, has developed a wireless technology to monitor heart patients. According to this Computerworld article, the technology was 'originally developed by Qualcomm Inc. to track and send messages to large truck fleets.' CardioNet's service is initially focused on the 2 million U.S. people suffering from arrhythmia. Each patient is equipped with a PDA-type electrocardiogram (ECG) monitoring device connected by a short-range wireless system to electrodes on his chest. Data is sent to his doctor via a built-in cell phone chip. More details, including a diagram and pictures showing how the system works are also available."
I don't see a point unless this includes a tracking device.. I mean, what good is it if my doctor knows I'm dying, but doesn't know where I am??
If I had one of these babies I could have it log onto IRC and AIM and inform my friends via e-mail of my death =D
Banaaaana!
So, now my personal digital assistant can listen to my heart and assist me in the event of a heart attack. Should be handy on my Handspring Trio with a built in cell phone to call 911.
A lot of hospitals still require people to turn off cell phones, as they allegedly might have an effect on other equipment. Talk about valuing your own life over others...
Someone use it on *BSD! Finally, we can know for sure whether it is really dying, or not!
LRC, the best-read libertarian site on the web
Every BSD distribution to ship with one of these things attached.
(it's no good if only one of them dies - we shall not be happy until all of BSD is finally dead!)
Whenever we're at the hospital or doctor's office, our blood pressure is up, so it's tough for doctors to get a real world grasp on how a patient's doing, even when taking Heisenberg's uncertaintly principle into consideration. That's where I see the biggest benefit in this device--monitoring high risk patients and getting a more accurate picture of how s/he is doing.
Aex.
Clippy: It seems you're having a heart attack... Do you want me to call for help?
how long until
There is a handspring handspring.com springboard expansion ECG device smilar to this except it uses wires and is designed for anisthesiologists.
The Television Wiki
I think this presents some neat possibilities beyond the mentioned focuses. It'd be pretty cool to have a PDA respond differently to you based on your heart rate (which can be an indicator to certain emotions).
Sombody will hack it and be able to hijack the wireless signal. Then love-less geeks will be able to tell by heart rate if she actually likes me... No, I mean them!
--- to swing on the spiral...
Now all we need is a PDA battery pack with enough juice to get the old ticker started again.
Bluetooth has discovered a new device "Human Heart" - Autoconfigure (Yes/No)?
Can you see the conversation between a doctor and a nerd about this?
Doctor: Now, Poindexter, I've just set this PDA up...
PDA: Thump... thump... thump...
Doctor: And I'm giving it to you.
PDA: Kathump...kathump...kathump...
Doctor: As well as the regular functions, it's got a few more...
PDA: KathumpKathumpKathump
Doctor:It records your heartbeat, for instance
PDA: KathumpityKathumpityKathumpity
Doctor: Oh. 180? That can't be right. It musn't work. Here, take this stopwatch, and sms me with your pulse every half an hour.
PDA: Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep
--
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From the article, I believe this device is simply a holter monitor that immediately sends the data elsewhere. Typical holter monitors log all the data on a device the patient wears for 24hrs. When the patient returns to the doctor's office, the device is removed and the data is transferred to one or more formats (CD, paper hardcopy, etc). If the data was being streamed and analyzed in realtime, doctors may be able to call a patient into the hospital before symptoms present themselves.
Just hook it up to your kid's heart, and you'll know by his increased heartrate when he's downloading porn on the thing and fapping away.
I know this is a valuable application of technology, something we dont see enough of but my very first thought was where will this monitoring end. In the future will my woman be getting wireless messages that my blood alcohol levels are rising so she can put an end to my fun in the pub. Will she be able to get messages that my testosterone levels are increasing while I'm looking at an attractive woman. God forbid the damn things are interactive so she can administer electric shocks in this scenario.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Let us just hope it doesn't have a TCP/IP stack written in BASIC on a 6502 then. The doctor can't help the patient if they already croaked 30 seconds ago.
I can just see a patient dying because they went out of cell phone range.
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
...when this guy is going to stop Piquepaille-ing out his blog on slashdot?
This post story is only slightly more interesting than his 'Cognitive Machines' story yesterday.
This isn't even that original, there have been machines to do this type of diagnostics over the phone for years. So they've hooked it up to a PDA, big deal. It's not a bad idea, just not very original or spectacular from where I'm sitting.
Friend of mine has developed software that monitor's the heartbeats of infants when they come out of delivery. This software runs on an iPaq (standard, off the shelf variety). Similar features as described in the article.
Amazing the amount of work required to get that accepted by the medical establishment.
I would imagine his solution, because it does not require special hardware (for the PDA) would be more affordable.
Can you hear my heart beat now *dub* *dub*
Can you hear it now. *dub* *dub*
Can you hear it now. *silence*... OH MY GOD THEY KILLED KENNY
YOU BAS...Naah, just lost the signal there for a while.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Great! Now, I can finally tell if the people beside me really are cold heartless bastards.
I sold these guys a spectrum analyzer on eBay a couple of years ago. Glad to see it was put to good use. :)
Spyware will now know just what great discount offers really excite you, and can report those back so you then get spammed with more such offers (until you finally have a heart attack).
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I for one welcome our new Cardio overlords.
Like Roxette?
You know where you are? You're in the $PATH, baby. You're gonna get executed!
Vitaphone GmbH has a similar product.
Listen to your hear-eart - when he's callin' for you
Listen to your hear-eart - there's nothin' else you can do
I don't know where you're goin' and I don't know why-y
But listen to your hear-eart - before you tell him goodbye-ye
But it might be the beginning of one. If it could detect early warning signs it could be a good thing
big deal. my heartrate monitor is more advanced.
Way back when I was just out of medical technology school, there was an article about the possibility of having all the lab machines hooked up to a mainframe that would control them, perhaps by the year 2000. (we had sophisticated, but pure analog eqiupment) That was just about the time Intel released the 8008, then the 8080. The first computer controlled lab equipment rolled in the door in early 1975, and by the late 1970s we were fully wired, with a network of PDP8s.
The diagnostic difficulty with cardiac arrythmias is that they are intermittent ... the chances of having one show up in the cardiologist's office is slim to none.
Then they developed the "Holter" monitor ... huge, battery operated thing that could be pushed around the wards by inpatients.
Then it was battery operated and in a fanny pack, and you wore electrodes for a few days, periodically hooking it to a special phone device to transmitted data. (similar device is/was used for high-risk pregnancies - they have a special belt to spot early labor contractions so mum-to-be can come in if needed)
Now it's continuous monitoring with something embedded that is smart enough to email the doc ... if it can make it through all that spam. There are remote embedded defibrillators. It's apparently like being kicked by a mule when it gets activated by your heart malfunctioning.
DoS from some collective event (power outages) ?
... ad nauseam ?
A new way to collect statistics on consumer response ? On political response ? Oh, you Orwell !
Worms inducing "flutter" to this or that particular interest ?
Fun with e-m interference ?
More "patient" lifestyle correlation ?
Hacking by insurance / "health" co's ?
Employers will require you to sign a waiver to allow them to monitor your heart transmit, at their convenience ? And forbid you from turning it off, mute it, or otherwise
How soon before some jerk sues / is sued for having his heart beat just like someone else's patented heartbeat ?
More silliness to put "live" on personal web pages ?
Why did Heinlein's "Puppetmasters" just come to mind ?
The article seems to be from the Qualcomm perspective. This device draws from many technologies beside Qualcomm communications infrastructure, but that gives it a big bandwidth boot. I worked at Cardionet when they started up, for about a year. Great concept, well realized. The device contained a small GPS receiver so as to be able to report your position (if outdoors), or the location of the door you entered (GPS doesn't work well inside buildings).
However the belt-worn device does more than simply send the patient's heartbeat waveform to a monitoring center. It actually performs a realtime cardiac waveform analysis, looking for specific anomalies and arrhythmias, comparing levels against physician-defined thresholds. Only when a threshold is exceeded is an action taken. See bullet 4 from in the diagram.
Slashdot's name? When my compiler sees
apparently thats extremly dangerous. There was a guy in the paper who by doing that started having random erections ;-)