07. Technology & Medicine. A Love Story

Consumer health monitoring technology is unbiased. It does not over-charge. It does not over-prescribe. It does not commit fraud. It takes people to do those things. Imagine that you will be able to use your smart phone to monitor your health status, in real time, all the time. Imagine that you could receive reminders or warnings, and that you could use telemedicine to obtain a doctor's advice, or a prescription on the spot.

Telemedicine is the "new house call" available any time day or night, helping to keep you out of the emergency room for late night incidents or false alarms. The tech industry will soon give us handheld devices that work something like the Tricorder from Star Trek, and dozens or hundreds of other tools to intelligently monitor our health, to instantly provide experts with the data they need, and facilitate remote diagnosis. We will tell you about a handful of examples that may be available sooner than you think.

Today, new cars are enhanced with 400 sensors to monitor status, so you can have greater confidence to resolve potential problems. But your body has zero sensors... Not for long. Expect good things.