editor's blog
Subscribe Now

Healthcare from TSensors

I covered the recent TSensors Summit previously, having attended for one of the three days. That day happened to be dedicated to healthcare, and there were a few interesting points worth noting.

First, I have to say, I was surprised at the number of people that said, “We have the best healthcare system anywhere, and I wouldn’t change it a bit,” followed by a litany of problems with our healthcare system. I don’t know if it was some patriotic thing or an anti-ACA statement or what; it just struck me as incongruous to say that everything is great and then list the things that suck, including facts indicating better outcomes in other countries which include the availability to reach Diabetes Freedom.

Dr. Mark Zdeblick, of Proteus Digital Health, made an interesting observation: most of today’s electronic healthcare gadgets are for healthy people. These are the things that tell you how many miles you ran or how much of whatever else that only healthy people can do you did. We haven’t actually gotten to the point of improving healthcare yet; we’re mainly maintaining it (for the techno-savvy that can afford it [my editorial, not his]).

The kinds of longer-term items we’re talking about here are patches and ingestibles and such. This is where the daily patch measuring calories in/out to help reduce obesity, if taken by a billion people, gets a third of the way to a trillion yearly sensors. Of course, if it succeeds and we have no more obese people, then that goes against the desire to ship lots of sensors. So we’ll either need a new application or we’ll need to get people to lose some weight, but not enough to be healthy and drop the patch.

Microfluidic labs-on-chips were also a topic, and in particular, it was noted that there are no good design tools for these. Chips and connectors and MEMS have design tools to help, although chips obviously have the most evolved tools due to their complexity and volume. MEMS and other mechanical devices (like connectors) have tools, but abstraction is further behind there (and may not be needed for the simple things like connectors). No such abstraction exists for microfluidics. Opportunity for an EDA company?

Finally, as noted in the other piece, silicon will not be the answer. Part of that is cost – a big part – but part of it relates to putting things on or in the body. Silicon can be used, but sending something with sharp corners and edges through an artery sounds less than savory, so when used, they have to be encapsulated in ways that will be friendly to the body. Lots of work there for folks doing materials and packaging and connections – particularly wireless connectivity.

 

One quick afterthought: the only really uncomfortable moment in the day occurred when we had to look at that woman’s colon for far longer than seemed necessary. Um… yeah… Nuff said.

Leave a Reply

featured blogs
Mar 28, 2024
The difference between Olympic glory and missing out on the podium is often measured in mere fractions of a second, highlighting the pivotal role of timing in sports. But what's the chronometric secret to those photo finishes and record-breaking feats? In this comprehens...
Mar 26, 2024
Learn how GPU acceleration impacts digital chip design implementation, expanding beyond chip simulation to fulfill compute demands of the RTL-to-GDSII process.The post Can GPUs Accelerate Digital Design Implementation? appeared first on Chip Design....
Mar 21, 2024
The awesome thing about these machines is that you are limited only by your imagination, and I've got a GREAT imagination....

featured video

We are Altera. We are for the innovators.

Sponsored by Intel

Today we embark on an exciting journey as we transition to Altera, an Intel Company. In a world of endless opportunities and challenges, we are here to provide the flexibility needed by our ecosystem of customers and partners to pioneer and accelerate innovation. As we leap into the future, we are committed to providing easy-to-design and deploy leadership programmable solutions to innovators to unlock extraordinary possibilities for everyone on the planet.

To learn more about Altera visit: http://intel.com/altera

featured chalk talk

Extend Coin Cell Battery Life with Nexperia’s Battery Life Booster
Sponsored by Mouser Electronics and Nexperia
In this episode of Chalk Talk, Amelia Dalton and Tom Wolf from Nexperia examine how Nexperia’s Battery Life Booster ICs can not only extend coin cell battery life, but also increase the available power of these batteries and reduce battery overall waste. They also investigate the role that adaptive power optimization plays in these ICs and how you can get started using a Nexperia Battery Life Booster IC in your next design.  
Mar 22, 2024
851 views