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Health Care
Healthcare is a $2 Trillion/year industry which amounts to 16% of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product. These numbers are expected to rapidly rise as the aging baby boomers will continue to increase the elderly age group population (people above 60 years of age) from the current 10% level to the 25% level in 2030. While the advances in hardware and software technologies for healthcare services have been remarkable, networking remains as the main hurdle in delivering much needed modern healthcare services in a timely and cost-effective manner.
One of the most basic yet powerful tools in all of medicine
is the simple microscope. It is the
first tool of evaluation for skin diseases, ear aches, and sore throats, as
well as being central to diagnosis of blood diseases. However, only the discerning eye of a trained
physician can filter images and provide effective diagnoses and treatment
recommendations. We propose to link
high-resolution microscopic imaging with clinical expertise through
microscopy-enabled cell phones.
In Malaysia
around 40,000 people suffer from stroke every year. At least one-fourth of
stroke survivors experience aphasia, a communication impairment that varies
considerably across patients but most involves some form of deficit in language
comprehension. Language rehabilitation, especially when it is intense (8-10
hours/week for 12 weeks) and it starts early (after the patient's medical
condition has stabilized, often within 24 to 48 hours after the stroke,
preferably in acute-care hospitals), has been shown to be beneficial in
The burden of infectious diseases is very high in developing
countries. World-wide, nearly 1 million
die annually from malaria, 2.9 million from enteric (intestinal) infections,
4.3 million from respiratory infections, and 5 million from AIDS and
tuberculosis. Unfortunately, most
methods for diagnosing these diseases are invasive, labor intensive, and
sometimes inadequate. Furthermore, they
require laboratory equipment and infrastructure that are not typically found in
remote/resource-limited areas. Thus,
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