Medical industry to follow the trend of iPhone's "Smart Storm"

In today's hospitals, there are too many modern informational medical devices that doctors need to master. The addition of smart phones is also a burden for doctors, and it can be practiced repeatedly. For the medical device industry, if you do not follow smart mobile devices, you may encounter unprecedented Waterloo.

No one can think of the iPhone as having any substantial connection with health care. Although the Apple Store has launched a series of medical and health-related applications, it once appeared to the professional as a grandstanding performance.

The development of reality is unexpected. Recently, the FDA approved the iPad/iPhone for the first time as an auxiliary product for medical imaging diagnostic radiology. Experts believe that iPad's mobile technology allows doctors to immediately view images without having to walk between the diagnostic site and the workstation. The iPad can now read the results of computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging.

In some places, the iPhone has become a diagnostic tool for doctors. According to a recent study by the University of Calgary Medical School in Canada, doctors using the iPhone for stroke diagnosis can achieve the same accuracy as using medical computer workstations, with accuracy rates ranging from 94% to 100%. According to researchers, this technique is very useful in rural medical settings, where the doctors and patients can be connected in real time, regardless of their location.

Although previous smart phone applications in medical diagnostics have not attracted enough attention from the medical device field, the medical community, and medical institutions, with smart phones such as the iPhone gradually becoming an open application platform, smart phones have apparently released more than handheld mobile phones. Medical equipment is more powerful.

Many people are skeptical about smart phones, but in reality, there are three major advantages of smart phones that traditional medical devices cannot match.

In contrast, the domestic need to buy an iPhone quality smart phone should be around 5,000 yuan, perhaps in the mobile phone field, this price is obviously too expensive, but compared to other mobile medical diagnostic equipment at a price of at least tens of thousands of mobile phones, smart phones instead Looks cheap.

For today's hospitals, doctors need to master modern medical equipment is too much, large MRI, ultrasound, X-ray machines, small to all kinds of handheld medical equipment, has added too much to the doctor Annoyance, if you can simply replace some functions with a smart phone, it is also a burden for doctors. After all, you can move freely in your pocket and you can practice it at any time.

In addition to the price, the openness of the smart phone platform is unmatched by any mobile medical device. Even if the expensive equipment is a virtue, even if it is upgraded, the smartphone can be expanded indefinitely as long as it has a certain hardware basis. Ultrasonic diagnosis, nuclear magnetic resonance and other functions can be integrated into one device.

The advancement of the IOS system is indeed commendable. No one can imagine that a serious medical field can involve smart phones. This will be a revolutionary change for the medical device industry. Will medical devices change from one-way communication machines to integrated smart platforms?

In the author's view, this process is inevitable and inevitable. Maybe, the extension of the iPhone to the medical field will lead to a "smart storm" in the medical device industry. Although the medical functions of smart phones will not impact large medical devices, for the medical device industry, if you do not follow smart mobile devices, you may encounter unprecedented waterloo. Just like Nokia's failure, no one can tell consumers forever. What is right, the market will naturally choose a medical device that better represents the future.