Medical Diagnosis Apps – A Game Changer in the World of On-request Healthcare

What Is a Medical Diagnosis App?

Medical diagnosis refers to the interpretation of the symptoms experienced by an individual to determine the possible illness they may have. A diagnostic app aims to do just that: you enter the symptoms you’re experiencing – say high temperature, pain, nausea, etc., and it will make use of intelligent algorithms, AI, and machine learning to identify your possible health condition almost instantaneously! Some apps even suggest treatments, like the kind of diet you need to follow, specific exercises or rest needed, and so on. This is technology working to put affordable and accessible healthcare in your hands.

Chief Evangelist of Brand Marketing at Google, Gopi Kallayil, says that though the normal human body has 78 organs, for the Smartphone-wielding population, that number is 79 – with the Smartphone being the 79th. Isn’t that true? We carry our smartphones everywhere we go – to work, parties, family get-together, the movies, the beach, and some of us, even to the toilet! The Smartphone is a virtual extension of our self. Just like the tagline used by American Express, we ‘Never Leave Home Without It’. And the ‘we’ is an estimated 5 billion people worldwide – that’s a whopping number by any standards.

Smartphones are becoming increasingly powerful and user-friendly, and are packed with numerous sensors, extending their potential applications; the emergence of Artificial Intelligence and cloud computing has significantly amplified this potential. Today they simplify a plethora of routine tasks with the help of different apps; shopping, dining, travel planning, payments and a whole lot more. It only makes sense, therefore to have apps that will also help us in healthcare.

Smartphones, today, have evolved tremendously from the time they were first introduced; they can respond to your voice, read your heartbeat and fingerprints, help you control other devices and appliances, and a whole lot more. Initial healthcare apps were simpler, like helping you maintain a record of your blood pressure readings, reminding you to drink water or take your meds, recommending your daily calorie intake based on your current and target weight, and the like.

But the diagnostic apps of today are way more sophisticated, they throw up pretty accurate diagnoses based on the symptoms you enter you can say, it’s like a virtual doctor app!

Many diseases have the same or similar symptoms, and no two people always have the same symptoms of the same disease; there are over 10,000 known diseases. This means the app needs to be smart with a sophisticated algorithm to provide the user with the right, or at the very least, the closest diagnosis; not an easy task by far. You may be surprised to know that healthcare providers also use some medical diagnosis apps. Medscape is an example of such an app. Often doctors, nurses, and technicians refer to the apps to confirm or double-check the diagnosis, or to learn about latest treatment options.

1. Inexpensive And Instant Point-of-Care

Being portable, smartphone-based diagnostic tools and apps can be taken to where the patient is rather than getting the patient to a lab. This is extremely valuable in remote areas where access to quality healthcare is a major problem. Often, simple, inexpensive attachments can provide accurate diagnoses comparable to conventional tools that are usually expensive, and time-consuming too.

The best example of this is the CD4 counter developed by the Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) research team. This device integrates micro-fabrication and the versatility and high computing power of smartphones to test for HIV. It requires fitting an optical Smartphone attachment and a microfluidic device – both of which can be manufactured for less than $10. Its results are comparable to the globally accepted flow cytometry test. It is portable, affordable, eliminates the need for refrigeration, or power outlets, it is highly promising for use in developing regions of the world with a high incidence of HIV cases, like sub-Saharan Africa, where quality healthcare is sadly still inaccessible or unaffordable.

2. Decentralization of Healthcare

Efficient, affordable and simple point-of-care diagnostic tools help decentralization of healthcare and have the potential to revolutionize patient screening. It can help overcome the limitations presented by lack of sufficient number of professionals or inadequate equipment.

3. Saves Time

You can get instant results by checking your symptoms in a medical diagnosis app. By showing your doctor the analysis generated by your app, you can eliminate the time spent in trial-and-error diagnosing. You can also get a good idea of the tests you may need to confirm the diagnosis. This way, you can begin treatment sooner and recover quickly.

4. Increased Diagnostic Accuracy

Medical diagnosis apps work in different ways; this is made possible because of the computing power, built-in cameras with dedicated software and sensors, and portability supported by smartphones.

One obvious use is what we have been talking about – apps that ask you for your symptoms and then provide you with a quick diagnosis. But smartphones are capable of being integrated with, to perform diagnostic tests, with a surprisingly high level of accuracy, and reduced costs.

5. Real-time data transmission and public health

Now patients can use diagnosis app to monitor their sugar levels or blood pressure and transmit this data to their healthcare providers in real-time. This allows them to maintain a regular record of their patients’ health without much effort, and to detect anomalies or deviations. It can also be used as a tool of public health records, to slow down or minimize the spread of pandemics.

6. Testing arterial blood flow in wrists

A study conducted by the University of Ottawa Heart Institute suggests that Smartphone technology may be more accurate than the conventional physical exam to evaluate the arterial blood flow in the wrists, used primarily patients who need angioplasty. The color Doppler ultrasonography is the best, but it’s expensive, and certainly not portable.

7. Antenatal STD screening

Detecting sexually transmitted diseases in pregnant women in the first trimester can help in reversing the possible damage caused to the health of both the unborn babies and mothers. Again, such incidents are more common in the places where the testing facilities are scarce – developing countries. At the University of Columbia, researchers in the Sia Lab developed a dongle which when attached to a Smartphone, could detect STDs like syphilis and AIDS in 15 minutes. Portable, simple, and loaded with reagents, along with a user-friendly app that helped read the results easily makes it a powerful tool in the hands of healthcare workers with no prior experience with conventional diagnostic tools.

Numerous devices compatible with smartphones have helped ease diagnostic workflows, minimizing dependence on infrastructure; they also provide point-of-care diagnostics, which is invaluable when rapid results are of the essence. Devices like the D4 assay for HIV testing, the TRI analyzer, a spectral analyzer (developed by Prof. Brian Cunningham and his team at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) that can perform assays like food safety, animal health, and environmental monitoring for medical diagnosis, are examples of the integration of the sensors, cameras, and computing power of Smartphones with specific low-cost attachments to create powerful mobile diagnostic tools. These devices are safe for use by patients and healthcare workers, and require no technical expertise; often a simple manual suffices, or a short training session.

The function of man-made consciousness in clinical analysis has developed massively with time. It has just been helping doctors in making analyze; PC supported understanding of X-Rays, MRIs, ultrasound pictures, breaking down heart sounds, overseeing drugs, foreseeing HIV movement, and so on.

The present cell phone client is well informed and more requesting than any other time in recent memory, and aches for gigantically customized encounters. An AI determination application uses AI (capacity to learn without explicit projects) calculations to turn out to be more client mindful. Because of AI, information from cell phones can be utilized to increase crucial bits of knowledge about client propensities like their exercises, diet, rest cycles, etc. These experiences are additionally used to adjust the application to the client’s conduct. The personalization is the urgent factor behind the ascent of such applications.

Some applications talk with you, requesting manifestations and patient subtleties, and in any event, for related indications as a numerous decision question – making the cycle consistent and successfully basic. It is additionally intelligent, causing it to appear to be fairly similar to conversing with one’s doctor, and not a machine. Instances of such applications are Ada, Human Dx, Symptomate, and Baidu’s Melody.

Man-made intelligence fueled applications additionally utilize publicly supporting to gather information from medical care experts over the world, giving the client exact outcomes.

Versatile demonstrative applications hold the possibility to affect the fate of clinical conclusion significantly, as cell phone based imaging and detecting stages are ceaselessly advancing.

There is no uncertainty that the utilization and prominence of virtual specialist applications are good to go to take off; individuals are as of now making less visits to the specialist. Self-finding presents its entanglements like in some cases subverting the significance of a real specialist, yet the increasing expenses of clinical protection and medicines are reasons enough for individuals to pick that way.

We are probably going to see a more prominent multiplication of purpose of-care symptomatic devices in distant and financially immature districts on the planet.

From our perspective, AI conclusion applications could improve the collaboration among patients and specialists. While engaging patients simultaneously by giving them more control, applications additionally help the patient with the recuperation cycle.

As opposed to rushing to the specialist each time you sniffle or have a fever, you would now be able to check your manifestations in an application – this implies such applications will spare patients a great deal of time and cash.

An as of late directed overview uncovered that 42% of the specialists met accepted that their patients could profit by symptomatic applications – a critical number. The applications could well assist specialists with improving their adequacy, upgrade correspondences, and help in better record upkeep.

We may see more versatile applications which require connections, similar to the CD4 counter prior – state for normal blood tests, transforming your telephone into a convenient lab.

The applications may change or change physical assessments, including for lung work, envisioning the carotid, visual keenness perusing and that’s just the beginning.

The quantity of infections these applications can analyze may soar.

Creating diagnostics dependent on cell phones have their arrangement of difficulties – not the least being the rate at which the innovation gets old, making future sealing a difficult one to figure out.

Guaranteeing steady execution and similarity with various stages and kinds of cell phones and plans is another gigantic test.

There is additionally the issue of guideline by FDA and different specialists. Any clinical gadget needs to meet tough prerequisites for it to be delivered in the market – and this cycle can take years. In some cases, the application can lose all sense of direction in the progress.

Effectively, countless applications have been delivered, and we can anticipate some more; this implies engineers should carry their A-game to the table to make applications that are additionally captivating and precise to beat the opposition.

Clinical analysis applications are not intended to supplant specialists, rather it’s there to make their positions simpler. Treatment and drug ought to be chosen distinctly on meeting with doctors.