The WSJ's consumer tech columnist Walt Mossberg has some health problems, namely diabetes and heart disease, he told the TEDMED crowd last night. And he'd really like it if the same kind of innovation he writes about could help out people like him.
"As we get diseases that [can] be managed, we need to take the kind of technology that's in this," he said, holding up his Apple iPad, and "put it into the hands of consumers to maintain their health or manage disease."
After all, the gadget he uses the most, Mossberg said, doesn't even begin with "i." It's his glucose meter, which he described as "a piece of crap" based on 1977-era technology. A product developer who "showed this to Steve Jobs [would] be fired immediately," he said.
Why? It doesn't connect to smart phones or mobile devices, or even to the internet; a reading involves an invasive fingerstick, which makes many people avoid testing their blood sugar and test strips are $1 each – another deterrent to testing.
(Last year Mossberg did review one USB-equipped glucose meter, which he said was a step in the right direction.)
He challenged the medical tech world to come up with health devices that are directed at consumers, not just clinicians. Even medical iPad and iPod apps are either aimed squarely at physicians or fall into a more broad "health and fitness" consumer category that includes golf tips and baby naming.
"There's very little I can find that speaks to health problems," he says.
Do you agree? What's your dream intelligent medical consumer device?
