This WSJ article/op-ed provides insights and predictions into the relatively near-term future of personalized medical monitoring, and the role of your phone and other computers. Some excerpts are pasted below but read it all:
"Thanks to more than 20 Silicon Valley startups and advances in microfluidic technology, smartphones will soon be able to function as a mobile, real-time resource for rapidly obtaining all the studies done currently in a medical laboratory, including chemistries, blood values and microbiological studies. A device worn on the wrist, called Visi, has been approved by the FDA for hospital use that can measure your heart’s electrical activity, respiratory rate, blood oxygen and blood pressure (without a cuff), and transmit the data wirelessly. Many other such devices are coming out that could be used by patients in their own homes.
Today an individual can feed a test strip into a device (there are a number of them) that—once connected to a smartphone equipped with an app—can carry out a complete urinalysis and instantly give the individual his or her specific gravity, pH, and levels of glucose, protein, red blood cells, white blood cells, bilirubin, nitrates—and even tell a woman if she is pregnant by measuring her HCG hormone."
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