The History and Future of Mobile Health

Why?!... is a Dot Matrix printer sitting on the moon? Let alone in every laboratory around the galaxy?

No Seriously. These really are in every lab around the world. Why? We're all to blame.

After visiting the largest Healthcare IT conference in Vegas, (demonstrating our latest mobile app platform for labs) everyone was discussing patient and physician engagement as the future!

It got me thinking! Now those who know me, know my fascination with history and the future. So, what does space, labs, health monitoring, dot matrix printers, mobile technology and aliens have anything to do with each other?! That’s for you to decide.

One thing we do know is the Future is Mobile Health.

What I didn't know was the History of Mobile Health.

So here it is!

Let’s Launch Ingenuity Like It’s 1961!

It is my intention to get your ingenuity boosters (rocketing) ((bad pun sorry)), at your lab or health organization! To get mobile health conversations started! Heck Apple just announced they are doing patient health records for your iphone!

And Let’s Go Beyond Dot Matrix Printers and Barcode Scanners! For the Love of Mankind!

 So I decided to research the history of mobile health! Here’s a short historical journey of NASA inventing mobile health for the first space missions!

 Before we get to the history…Lets talk about the future for 3 power secs, so aliens will think we are superior life forms or moving in that direction!

 Mobile Technology has so much promise to transform the healthcare system. And these changes can’t come soon enough. Empowered patients demand education and health records from their providers! Engage patients! Let them search for the best physician! Schedule an appointment that syncs with the health system. A Tinder App for doctor searches! Don't steal that idea please! As payors and providers shift from activity-based models to outcomes-based models! As clinicians, physicians and patients need to communicate on the fly! Lets get paper forms into mobile platforms for patients to e-sign, load insurance and verify benefits. Health on Demand. Labs on Demand.

 Follow our series to learn about the coming challenges and the way the cloud, smartphones, and other mobile-technology solutions are poised to meet them.

 Matt Green. President. www.IdentifiTech.com Mobile Health Platforms for Health Systems.

Ok Ok heres your history lesson already!

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 In 1961, President John F. Kennedy dramatically pledged to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade and return him safely to earth. To achieve that, NASA needed to develop new ways to monitor astronauts’ health from earth while they floated up there in the stars.

 The space mission was the first major feat of mobile medicine, bringing revolutionary advances in the ability to monitor vital signs from afar.

·        Real-time monitoring techniques had to be developed.

·        Physiological changes were noted in individual crewmen.

·        The most important of these were cardiopulmonary status.

In addition to heart rate, oxygen consumption was monitored along with inlet/outlet temperature of the liquid cooled garment worn by the crewmen. Amazing considering there were no mobile, cellular, communication or monitoring devices created other than radio technology. And certainly no monitoring devices for health.

Here are some cool exerts and mobile health history lesson below from…

Biomedical Results of Apollo Crew Health and Inflight Monitoring

CLINICAL ASPECTS OF CREW HEALTH

By W. Royce Hawkins, M.D. & John F. Zieglschmid, M.D.

Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center

https://history.nasa.gov/SP-368/s2ch1.htm

When the United States space program first began, the concept of obtaining continuous physiological data by instrumenting the human operator was a new one. No sufficiently reliable off-the-shelf hardware was available. Since that time, sophisticated and highly reliable biotelemetry devices have been developed.

Onboard bioinstrumentation was provided to monitor vital signs for rapid diagnosis of any physiological difficulty in a crewmember and to provide medical information required for mission management.

Each Apollo crewman wore a biosensor harness which provided a means of transmitting critical physiological data to the ground. Through this system, medical personnel were able to evaluate physiological status during such critical phases as launch and docking, extravehicular activity, and lunar explorations. This real-time telemetry of vital biomedical information was also available for monitoring Apollo crewmen in the event of inflight illness.

The operational bioinstrumentation system was designed as an individually adjustable unit worn under the flight clothing. The biobelt assembly was an electronic system that included sensors, signal conditioners, and telemetry interfaces. The system returned electrocardiogram, heart rate, and respiratory pattern and rate data. A two-lead EKG with synchronous phonocardiography provided an index of cardiac activity. Cardiotachometer equipment made monitoring of instantaneous and average heart rate information possible. Voice communications and real-time television observations, coupled with monitoring of the vital signs, provided the medical basis for an inflight clinical profile of the Apollo astronauts.

Data from the biotelemetry of the spacecraft were displayed at consoles at the launch and mission control centers. The consoles were manned continuously by medical personnel during the course of each mission. Heart and respiration rates were displayed in digital form; electrocardiogram and impedance pneumogram data were presented on a cathode ray oscilloscope.

Additional data were telemetered during lunar surface extravehicular activity to permit assessment of the portable life support system and, additionally, the determination of the metabolic activity during lunar excursions. Metabolic rate was approximated by monitoring the inlet and the outlet temperatures of the liquid cooled garment. Heart rate and oxygen usage were also monitored as metabolic rate indices. Of the three methods, the thermal data and oxygen use methods proved to be reasonably accurate and significantly more reliable as a means for determining metabolic rate than did heart rate data

Bio Instrumentation

By: Stanley M. Luczkowski

https://history.nasa.gov/SP-368/s6ch3.htm

With the inception of the United States space program, continuous monitoring of vital signs was a relatively new concept. Since that time, the technology of biotelemetry - long distance transmission of physiological information-has come of age. Thousands of hours of data have been transmitted from space to the Earth from as far as 400 000 km (250 000 miles) away. Only when astronauts were in lunar orbit on the far side of the moon was there an interruption in the steady transmission of vital sign data to Earth-based physicians and mission controllers. All three crewmen were continuously monitored during Apollo missions 7 through 13. Beginning with Apollo 14, data were obtained on a continuous basis for at least one crewman. Both the Commander and the Lunar Module Pilot were closely monitored during the performance of lunar surface extravehicular activities, but because only one channel was available in the Lunar Module data were collected for only one crewman.

It was essential that vital signs be monitored during space flight. During early space flight operations, there was uncertainty as to the effects of space flight factors on normal physiological functioning. Transmission of physiological data provided essential information upon which a decision to abort a mission could have been reliably made from the ground, should it have become necessary. During Gemini missions, astronauts operated for the first time in the new environment of free space during the performance of extravehicular tasks. Vital sign monitoring coupled with voice communication in this instance dictated that early free space EVA be cut short because these activities proved too taxing. Later, modifications of training and procedures enabled astronauts to perform long-term extravehicular activities safely.

The Apollo bioinstrumentation system (BIS) requirements evolved as a continuation and refinement of medical monitoring systems utilized throughout the Mercury and Gemini Programs. The BIS and related hardware provided physiological data to ground-based medical personnel for operational inflight safety monitoring; for inflight medical experiments; and for ground-based operations safety monitoring.