[Three of Seven]

Two days ago, the BBC wrote about ten finalists being chosen in a £6mil competition to develop a medical scanner (or Tricorder), a way to assist with diagnosis without the need for bulkier machines could be handy. So they have been given a year to work on a working prototype, each competitor may come up with something that works differently, I would hope the prize would go to the one providing the highest level of detail.

The one concern raised in the BBC article is self-diagnosis, this is dangerous if you don't know what you are doing, the internet hasn't helped with self-diagnosis. Personally, I believe any tool for diagnosis should be left to the doctors and not the patients.

What are your thoughts? Any other technologies that would be beneficial for development?

[NeoTrident]

I remember reading about this when the competition was announced, I can't believe that the finalists are nearly ready to present so soon, its really exciting. I know that its not technically a Tricorder but still the idea is really cool and has huge benefit.

I would agree with the BBC that self diagnosis would be a concern but people will always try to self diagnose with whatever tools are available and using a device like this would be far better than the internet lol.

[Kains]

Gotta agree with Neo: As soon as you have a cough, everyone around you suddenly either thinks you're patient zero, or spontaneously develops an MD.

I would far rather a device that tells people to stop wasting hospital time over a cold, or to tell stubborn old people to get off their duff and go see a doctor...

[MonsterOmen]

This could be a great piece of technology. Heck even if doctors are the ones to use it and not the patients it could make things a lot easier on all of us when people aren't sure what is going on.

[Three of Seven]

It would speed up the process of a walk in clinic, meaning you wouldn't need to see a GP as often, cutting out the workload! But I still think self-diagnosis is often dangerous, it can't really tell you what is wrong, just that there is something wrong right? Blood pressure, heart rate and so forth can be affected by many things.

[Teroon]

It has a lot of potential, but as usual both for good and bad.
It might be especially helpful in situations where a doctor or hospital can't be reached.
On the other hand I know a few people who get agitated if there blood pressure is a little off and constant access to even more medical data might be unwise, especially when the interpretation of those data is not done by a medical professional, who should be able to see the whole picture and not the isolated values.

[JByb04]

The technology itself is a good thing. Although I would think that something like this would really only be isolated to Hospitals or Clinics and wouldn't come into private use. Even in ST you don't see Tricorders floating around the general populace.

It is amazing what we are seeing in terms of technological development. Items that in 1987 were portrayed as futuristic are now becoming reality. It gives me hope that I will live to see Humanity achieve faster than light travel and actually boldly go where no man has gone before.