Handheld diagnosis - GE's Vscan

This week I touch on a topic that is close to my heart but is not exactly consumer technology.

A set of engineers across the world are making machines smaller, portable, economical and more viable to ensure healthcare reaches everyone. Last week, GE took a huge step towards this goal by launching Vscan, a pocket-friendly machine — it is just 3 inches wide by 5.3 inches long and weighs about 500 grams, almost the size of a mobile phone — which houses powerful, ultra-smart ultrasound technology that provides an immediate, non-invasive method to secure visual information about the body. Vscan is battery operated and can easily be taken to any clinic, hospital or primary healthcare setting.

Vscan is designed to be complementary to the stethoscope, helping physicians go beyond what they can hear and see. It can scan up to 30 patients with its one-hour power backup and doctors can store results on its 4GB memory card, expandable up to 32 GB.
The high image quality, combined with simple, familiar, intuitive interface can be controlled using the thumb. Using a familiar dial key interface, physicians can zoom in and out, pan left and right for analysis and even add voice annotations. The docking station helps the transfer of data to a PC for organising or sharing the results with experts over the Internet.

Products like Vscan, which costs just Rs 6 lakh, can become a boon for countries like India where rural healthcare is in a bad shape. They can help state-of-the-art diagnostic technologies to primary health centres in small village without being reliant on the erratic power supply.

However, with this comes the added responsibility of ensuring that these devices are not misused by quacks for illegal gender determination and half-baked diagnosis

Companies like Siemens and SonoSite too are doing their bit with portable and cost affective medical equipments. What is required now is for the government to get these low-cost products to our primary health centres and make sure the technology reaches those who are in desperate need for it.
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The above article appeared in the Indian Express, on Sunday Feb 28, 2010