Medicine and the iPhone

I missed out on most of the fun about the iPhone 3G today. While I did get a chance to hang around the Venturebeat room on FriendFeed a little, work kept me away from ball-by-ball commentary. However, one thing did catch my eye. During the part where a variety of new iPhone apps were being introduced, two medical-related apps were highlighted.

Netter’s Anatomy is an app from Modality Learning. Here is a description of the product

Using outstanding anatomical illustrations from Netter’s hugely popular Atlas of Human Anatomy (4th Edition), Netter’s Anatomy allows you to carry the bestselling reference for human anatomy on your iPhone or iPod touch. Navigate through images with the flick of a finger, pinch to zoom, and tap to test your knowledge of muscles, bones, vessels, viscera and the joints. Use study mode to explore images at your own pace and quiz mode to test yourself on what you know.

While apps from Modality have been available on classic iPods in the past, the multitouch controls of the iPhone and other features are likely to take this to another level. One can easily extend this concept to other life science/biomedical applications, e.g. pathways, drug libraries, protein structures, etc.

Think that is far fetched? Not so fast. The second app demoed was a product from MIMvista, which allows you to examine MRI’s and other images. Given the wi-fi capabilities, new sync capabilities, etc this is a powerful tool for anyone looking for rich, mobile applications.

These announcements remind me of the BioIT World keynote by Josh Boger of Vertex, where he talked about how the iPhone can be used to track RFID tagged pill bottles, patient exercise regimens, carry patient records, monitor weight, etc.

The future is NOW!!!

Further reading
Ubicomp
Are our labs ready for a non-PC world

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

iphone, biomedical, mobile computing