Date: Saturday, 22 July 2017
The airplane had just taken off when one of the passengers lost consciousness. Eric Topol pulled his smartphone out of his pocket and immediately performed an electrocardiogram (EKG) on the passenger. He used the device to do an ultrasound scan of the man's heart and measured oxygen levels in his blood. He was then able to give the all-clear and the plane could continue its journey. The man had lost consciousness merely due to a temporarily slowed heart rhythm.
Topol is a cardiologist in La Jolla, California, and it wasn't the first time he had encountered such a situation while flying. On one occasion, he used his mobile phone to determine that a passenger had suffered a heart attack and the plane had to land immediately. Of particular interest to Topol, though, is the fact that anyone can perform such an EKG, whether a professor of medicine, a flight attendant or just a simple passenger. All one needs is a $200 sensor and a smartphone with an app that can analyze the heart's rhythm.
Hardly any other object has changed the world to the degree that smartphones have. It has become completely normal to use our mobile devices for shopping and managing our schedules. Political revolutions have been organized by smartphone and you can use one to find a life partner or to plan a funeral. Every single day, 10 times as many smartphones are sold around the world as babies born. And now, smartphones are conquering medical care........................
