Sensors that read patients vital signs just 10 years away

The era of doctors using smartphones at the patient’s bedside to make an instant diagnosis while simultaneously accessing their medical history from a cloud may sound like something out of Star Trek, but it is, in fact, less than a decade away, according to an expert in emerging device technology.

Jim Greer, head of Tyndall Graduate Studies Centre, said smartphones were supercomputers with in-built sensors which allow them carry out a variety of functions, such as detecting ambient light, humidity, temperature and pressure.

It was only a matter of time before the technology was adapted so that sensors could read a patient’s vital signs, Prof Greer said, adding that this, coupled with cloud computing, would allow doctors “to analyse and diagnose” a patient’s condition locally. The challenge is how to use nanotechnology to build this intelligence into devices.