Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking, to be one, and welcome to Forward Thinking,
Speaker 1: the podcast that looks at the future and says, everyone's
Speaker 1: a superhero, Everyone's a Captain Kirk. I'm Jonathan Strickland, and
Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick. Hey guys, Hey Jonathan. So you know
Speaker 1: what my favorite science fiction franchise with an overall optimistic
Speaker 1: perspective on what the future is gonna be happens to
Speaker 1: really be one. You know, you're right, But my second
Speaker 1: favorite is Star Trek. The Trek, the Trek, the one
Speaker 1: and only. Uh yeah, wait, wait, hold on, you got
Speaker 1: to say on the air, and people want to know,
Speaker 1: original series next Generation Voyager? Where are you? Uh? You know,
Speaker 1: when it comes down to the actual episode, I'm a
Speaker 1: next generation guy. When it comes to the films, I'm
Speaker 1: an original series guy. Um. I never really got into
Speaker 1: Voyager that much, although I understand it. If I had
Speaker 1: stuck with it, I probably would have enjoyed it. I
Speaker 1: actually really like Deep Space nine. Yeah. I thought that
Speaker 1: the political elements of Deep Space nine were really interesting. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So we've talked about Star Trek tech on this show before. Yes,
Speaker 1: we have, and there's got to be a reason we're
Speaker 1: bringing up Star Trek again. Might it be there's a
Speaker 1: specific piece of technology on the enterprise that we want
Speaker 1: to delve into. Yes, those elevators, those lifts are amazing.
Speaker 1: They are They're kind of like wantavaders. They can go
Speaker 1: sideways or diagonal ways. Okay, we want to talk about
Speaker 1: tri orders tricorders. Yeah. As it turns out, the tri
Speaker 1: quarter has been getting a lot of attention recently, mainly
Speaker 1: because of the announcement of specific teams that are competing
Speaker 1: to make a real one. Wait wait wait, wait wait, yeah,
Speaker 1: make a real one. Well, I mean it helps first
Speaker 1: to explained what a tricorder is, right, to understand why
Speaker 1: making a real one is kind of a big thing
Speaker 1: in the first place. Yeah, okay, So a triquarter is
Speaker 1: a medical device mainly, although it can also be just
Speaker 1: an environmental sensor. Yeah. It's a scientific device in general,
Speaker 1: but frequently used in medicine. Yeah. Uh. Mr Spock often
Speaker 1: carried a tricorder on away missions. They would beam down
Speaker 1: to a planet. Mr Spock would look at the tricorder
Speaker 1: and say, Captain, it appears we can breathe very useful information,
Speaker 1: but seriously though it had. It had environmental sensors. Really
Speaker 1: it was. It was like a magic sensor that could
Speaker 1: detect anything. It was. It was a little bit of
Speaker 1: a sonic screwdriver, it really was. It was very much
Speaker 1: like the Doctor Who Sonic Screwdriver, and that it was
Speaker 1: capable of doing whatever the plot needed it too. But
Speaker 1: within the context of the shows, it either would give
Speaker 1: you information about your environment, whether something might be toxic
Speaker 1: or there might be contaminants in the environment. You you
Speaker 1: might be able to tell if someone else had visited
Speaker 1: that same place that you visited. Let's say that it's
Speaker 1: a planet where it's pre warped technology planet, so the
Speaker 1: prime directive is in full effect, and you detect there's
Speaker 1: a signature here that states that we're not the first
Speaker 1: people to visit. That would be kind of a typical
Speaker 1: Star Trek plot. But like you said, Lauren, more frequently
Speaker 1: than not, you also saw the triquarter being used in
Speaker 1: a medical capacity when Dr Bones McCoy would be using
Speaker 1: it to determine what sort of terrible ailment had befallen
Speaker 1: a crew member before harassibly saying that he needed to
Speaker 1: treat it. In some medieval terrible way. So the example
Speaker 1: I have here is, according to this in and Smith,
Speaker 1: you have been stabbed by a klingon. That would be
Speaker 1: a diagnosis he would use after using the probe on
Speaker 1: a tricorder right right, which would be able to tell
Speaker 1: I don't know things about their vital signs or what's
Speaker 1: going on with their internal organs. Yeah, and detect anything
Speaker 1: like a like a pathogen, any sort of thing that
Speaker 1: would would affect the health in either a negative or
Speaker 1: a positive way. So wait a minute, No, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to remember. To get a reading on someone, did he
Speaker 1: have to insert it directly into their torso he did not.
Speaker 1: There was a non invasive tool. There were versions that
Speaker 1: had a separate little uh probe, but it wasn't a
Speaker 1: probe that would actually be invasive. He would just you
Speaker 1: would hold it closer to the person. You would cover
Speaker 1: it near a person. It would make a little bloom
Speaker 1: kind of kind of noise. Yeah, and you you were
Speaker 1: required that you were required to move your hand while
Speaker 1: doing it. Right. It wasn't like you just held it
Speaker 1: out to someone and you know, And this kind of
Speaker 1: ties into our discussions about in science fiction, you often
Speaker 1: have to have the actors do things so they don't
Speaker 1: feel like total idiots just standing there. What type of
Speaker 1: scanning device works better when you jiggle it around? Apparently
Speaker 1: a tricorder does. In the Star Trek universe. And these
Speaker 1: things look like giant cassette players. Do you get Do
Speaker 1: you guys remember cassette players? Yeah? Yeah, the kind of
Speaker 1: where you had to actually hit the stop ejective. Hey,
Speaker 1: we're from the eighties, not look, I'm just saying fourteen
Speaker 1: and yeah, I'm just saying like, like like, by the
Speaker 1: time you guys were around, there were more advanced versions
Speaker 1: of the basic tape player available. When I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: the old gray and silver ones that had the big
Speaker 1: window that you hit and it would pop the cassette out,
Speaker 1: that's kind of what these early tricorders. Later next generation
Speaker 1: it was more cell phone size. Yeah, okay, but surely
Speaker 1: there's nothing like that in real life. Is there like
Speaker 1: just this wonderful all purpose environmental medical sensor device. Well,
Speaker 1: there's certainly people working on making it a real thing.
Speaker 1: We're we're not quite at the point where someone has
Speaker 1: a device that has all the capability of the tricorder.
Speaker 1: We certainly don't have one that is able to do
Speaker 1: everything from diagnose a patient to tell you whether or
Speaker 1: not there are toxins in the environment, to telling you
Speaker 1: if someone had been there recently. We don't have anything
Speaker 1: like that, but we do have lots of advanced sensors,
Speaker 1: I mean, medical technology in general, at least the the
Speaker 1: basic opponents have all evolved quite a bit over the
Speaker 1: last couple of decades, although you may not see that
Speaker 1: reflected in any individual hospitals technology. Some hospitals are relying
Speaker 1: on technology that's uh, you know, several years old. Sure, well,
Speaker 1: but you know, the the need for or the desire
Speaker 1: for having non invasive technology, and especially noninvasive technology that
Speaker 1: patients themselves could use at home is tremendous and and
Speaker 1: that is where the X Prize comes in absolutely. So
Speaker 1: you guys, before we even talk about the X Prize,
Speaker 1: I mean, we've talked about wearables on this this show before, right,
Speaker 1: We've talked about wearables that can monitor things like your
Speaker 1: heart rate. That sort of stuff very common, and it
Speaker 1: shows that people are really interested in getting data about themselves.
Speaker 1: So the ex Prize is taking it to that next step.
Speaker 1: The idea of not just you know, what your heart
Speaker 1: rate is, but things like your respiration rate, how much
Speaker 1: oxygen is actually in your blood, really interesting vitals that
Speaker 1: go beyond this this sort of simplified approach that we
Speaker 1: see in things like fitness trackers. But the fact that
Speaker 1: fitness trackers are so popular shows that people are really
Speaker 1: interested in this and that it could in fact be
Speaker 1: a huge benefit if used responsibly. That's something that I'm
Speaker 1: sure I'm going to mention a couple of times in
Speaker 1: this episode because one of the things I like to
Speaker 1: caution people about is don't ever assume that technology is
Speaker 1: going to completely replace the experienced and informed opinion of
Speaker 1: a medical professional. Oh, certainly not. And that's not that's
Speaker 1: not what they're going for here, right, It's just that's
Speaker 1: the way a lot of people tend to interpret it.
Speaker 1: It's not the fault of the organization. It's not the
Speaker 1: fault of the different UH teams that are competing in
Speaker 1: this process. But often we think, oh, I have this gadget,
Speaker 1: and now I don't ever have to worry about going
Speaker 1: to a doctor unless something goes hard, doably wrong. We
Speaker 1: have this kind of reactionary approach to medicine here in
Speaker 1: the United States, and that's just something I don't want
Speaker 1: to advocate for. UH. I would frame it more in
Speaker 1: these terms. It's not so much that you have a
Speaker 1: gadget that replaces a doctor, but you have a gadget
Speaker 1: that replaces Google and hypochondria and and it also it
Speaker 1: also can augment what a doctor is able to do
Speaker 1: if you are able to go like if you start
Speaker 1: to see something that worries you, you can go to
Speaker 1: a doctor and say, I don't know what this means,
Speaker 1: but this these are the readings and getting so does
Speaker 1: this mean that there's something I should worry about? And
Speaker 1: from that point for where the doctor can handle things
Speaker 1: and make sure that you're getting the treatment you need
Speaker 1: if you need it, you may not, And that's that's
Speaker 1: the important thing to remember. Now. The really cool thing
Speaker 1: is that you have this ex prize in the first place.
Speaker 1: And anyone who's been following technology and science has probably
Speaker 1: heard of the ex prize. UH. It really started back
Speaker 1: in the nineteen nineties, and the original focus of it
Speaker 1: was to kind of kick start private space exploration projects, right.
Speaker 1: It was that whole prize of will give a certain
Speaker 1: amount of money to whichever team can have a spacecraft
Speaker 1: that can visit space within the span of two weeks.
Speaker 1: This was before SpaceX and etcetera. Yeah, yeah, so this
Speaker 1: is the sort of thing that was supposed to fuel
Speaker 1: that kind of innovation and it worked. We now have
Speaker 1: private companies that are working on developing stuff that goes
Speaker 1: out into space, some of which, like SpaceX, has already
Speaker 1: done it successfully a couple of times. So then you
Speaker 1: had X Prizes come up for other types of uses
Speaker 1: of technology, other innovation, not just space exploration, and one
Speaker 1: of those was the the Tricorder Challenge, which is sponsored
Speaker 1: by Qualcom. It has a ten million dollar prize for
Speaker 1: whichever team can create a tricorder that performs according to
Speaker 1: the contest criteria, and they set out exactly what this
Speaker 1: device is supposed to be able to do, and they
Speaker 1: leave a lot of the implementation up to the actual teams,
Speaker 1: so no one is forced into a specific form factor
Speaker 1: apart from some weight requirements. Right, So first you have
Speaker 1: to be able to diagnose twelve required core health conditions.
Speaker 1: Now I'm just gonna list some of these. These are
Speaker 1: not all of them, but it includes anemia, diabetes, hepatitis,
Speaker 1: a pneumonia, sleep apnea, tuberculosis. It has to be able
Speaker 1: to detect all of those, so they're twelve in total,
Speaker 1: and that's not an option. You have to figure out
Speaker 1: how your device can detect such a thing present in
Speaker 1: a patient that's using it, sure, and it also has
Speaker 1: to be able to detect the absence of anything wrong, right,
Speaker 1: It has to be able to tell you that if
Speaker 1: the person uses it and they don't have any of
Speaker 1: these conditions, that everything is far relatively normal and healthy,
Speaker 1: probably at least physically. Mentally. It's still just a roll
Speaker 1: of the dice, folks. Now, on top of the twelve
Speaker 1: required ones, you have to pick three elective conditions. So
Speaker 1: this is like an elective in a college course where
Speaker 1: you think, all right, you, these are the course requirements.
Speaker 1: These are the courses you have to take in order
Speaker 1: to graduate. And then here are the ones you can
Speaker 1: choose from as your electives. Same sort of thing. So
Speaker 1: they have to pick three of one of the following
Speaker 1: and this is just a selection of them. Allergens, cholesterol screening,
Speaker 1: food born illnesses, HIV screening, hypertension, melanoma, osteoporosis, pertussis, shingles
Speaker 1: or strep throat and more. So you have to pick
Speaker 1: three of those. Uh, there are a couple of other
Speaker 1: choices that are also on the list, and then beyond that,
Speaker 1: the device must also be able to get accurate readings
Speaker 1: on five vital signs, which those are blood pressure, heart rate,
Speaker 1: oxygen saturation, respiratory rate, and your body temperature. The prototype
Speaker 1: device cannot weigh more than five pounds, A big thing, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I mean it might be a lot easier to
Speaker 1: do this if you build this giant right right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're or a bed like you Just the patient lays
Speaker 1: in here and all the sensors are are part of
Speaker 1: the bed, and then we lay this, you know, covering
Speaker 1: over the has even more sensors on it. Obviously, that
Speaker 1: would not win in this particular approach. Can the device
Speaker 1: be a toilet? A toilet that weighs less than five pounds?
Speaker 1: They actually do say that that the method of getting
Speaker 1: this information is up to the individual company. But here's
Speaker 1: the kicker. Consumer consumer use experience is also a factor
Speaker 1: when it comes to judging the success or failure of
Speaker 1: the tri quarter. So it's not prioritize things that are
Speaker 1: less unpleasant, Yes, exactly, Yeah, so would a consumer want
Speaker 1: to use this device? So if it's a device that's
Speaker 1: going to require something like a blood sample that's going
Speaker 1: to be a bigger challenge than something that is totally noninvasive.
Speaker 1: This means that the front teams have to take that
Speaker 1: into consideration when they're making their designs. So it maybe
Speaker 1: that you're able to get much more accurate information with
Speaker 1: something that's invasive. But on the flip side, maybe people
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to use it because it would mean having to,
Speaker 1: you know, prick a finger or otherwise get a blood sample. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Maybe that there's a disposable uh liquid container that's meant
Speaker 1: for urine samples. In fact, I've heard of some that
Speaker 1: do that. So that would be one of those cases
Speaker 1: where you measure the benefit of the metric you're looking
Speaker 1: for and the method you're looking you're using to look
Speaker 1: for it versus our consumers actually going to do this
Speaker 1: or will they be turned off by the idea. So
Speaker 1: you have to judge that as well. And then eventually
Speaker 1: they're going to have tests for these things. That's actually
Speaker 1: coming up in two thousand fifteen. We're recording this in
Speaker 1: early September two fourteen, so next year, as the recording
Speaker 1: of this podcast, they will be putting these two to
Speaker 1: tests and they'll be diagnostic tests to make sure the
Speaker 1: device does what it's supposed to do, as well as
Speaker 1: consumer tests to make sure that people would want to
Speaker 1: use it, and if it does well in those tests,
Speaker 1: then that's what sets it above the other competitors. Eventually,
Speaker 1: the judges will make their decisions, they'll deliberate, and in
Speaker 1: sometime in two thousand sixteen, there will be a complete
Speaker 1: awards ceremony where they will announce which team came up
Speaker 1: with the winning tricorder design UH. As a part of this,
Speaker 1: the FDA, the Food Drug and Drug Administration in the
Speaker 1: United States, is also involved in this competition and is
Speaker 1: discussing what sort of regulatory requirements would be in place
Speaker 1: for them to get the device cleared by the FDA
Speaker 1: so it could be used medically. And that means that
Speaker 1: you have essentially the FDA working as a consultant in
Speaker 1: your design process, which saves so much time. It's not
Speaker 1: so much a um. You don't have to worry as
Speaker 1: much about the submission process, the testing, and then they
Speaker 1: get back to you and tell you what you have
Speaker 1: to address in order to get FDA approval. I mean
Speaker 1: that will still be part of it, but this helps
Speaker 1: smooth out some of the potential roadblocks along the way,
Speaker 1: which I think is pretty cool. Okay, well, so do
Speaker 1: we have any idea yet who's actually in the running
Speaker 1: and what they're working on. Yeah. It's actually kind of
Speaker 1: funny because, um, when I recorded the video that goes
Speaker 1: along with this audio podcast, I didn't realize that at
Speaker 1: the time, but the ten finalist teams had just been
Speaker 1: announced and I mean possibly that day, I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: I And it just so happened that I was researching
Speaker 1: GET the day the information it came out. I didn't
Speaker 1: know it was brand new information. I thought, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I guess these teams have been announced for a while,
Speaker 1: because this competition has been was has been announced for
Speaker 1: a couple of years, right, It's not like this is
Speaker 1: brand new, y. I think when it was announced at
Speaker 1: the time there were two dred and fifty five teams
Speaker 1: in competition. Um, later that was a narrowed to four. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's now been whittled down to ten teams, so
Speaker 1: ten teams are still competing. These teams had to make
Speaker 1: a real commitment to be part of this competition. It's
Speaker 1: not something that you can just enter for free. You
Speaker 1: actually have to pay an entrance fee. Uh. And the
Speaker 1: way the entrance fee worked was that the earlier you registered,
Speaker 1: the less expensive. The fee was began at five thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: So when I say less expensive, I'm still talking about
Speaker 1: a healthy chunk of change. Right. Some of these teams
Speaker 1: are little divisions of various companies. Some of them are
Speaker 1: partnerships between companies. But if you waited, if you dragged
Speaker 1: your feet and you waited to register, at the end
Speaker 1: of the period, you were paying around twenty five thousand
Speaker 1: dollars for your team to be part of this competition.
Speaker 1: So pretty impressive call now and save now. Granted, keep
Speaker 1: in mind, if you are the team that develops the
Speaker 1: right piece of technology, it's a ten million dollar prize.
Speaker 1: And here's the other interesting thing. I think about the
Speaker 1: X Prizes. A lot of times the X Prize award
Speaker 1: is less money than what it would have cost in
Speaker 1: research and development to develop the the actual technology. Well,
Speaker 1: but hopefully you're creating a piece of technology that you
Speaker 1: that is a real investment. Yeah, it turns out that
Speaker 1: I think a lot of teams compete not thinking oh,
Speaker 1: we're going to make this huge amount of money at
Speaker 1: the end of it, but rather they're competing because one
Speaker 1: they really believe in the competition, they believe in the goal,
Speaker 1: right and to they realize that if they win, it's
Speaker 1: not so much the money that's the big the big draw,
Speaker 1: it's the fact that you are the ex prize winner exactly.
Speaker 1: Even just being a finalist, you might get some publicity,
Speaker 1: like we're about to give right now. Who are some
Speaker 1: of these finals? All right? So from the United States,
Speaker 1: this is a global challenge, So we've got countries all
Speaker 1: over the world that have teams participating. In the US
Speaker 1: has the most teams that made it in the final
Speaker 1: ten Uh to the tune of four teams Aison, d
Speaker 1: m I, the final Frontier Medical Devices, Get That Star,
Speaker 1: trek UH and Scana Do which start Olivia Newton John
Speaker 1: was amazing. One of the first blog posts we ever
Speaker 1: wrote for our website was about the Scanna Do Scout,
Speaker 1: wasn't it. Yeah, We'll actually have some some extensive quotes
Speaker 1: from Lauren's blog post, which is, by the way, a
Speaker 1: fantastic read. So it was written all the way back
Speaker 1: in two thousand thirteen, but is still absolutely relevant. So
Speaker 1: you should definitely if you haven't followed the forward thinking blogs.
Speaker 1: Go check it out. There's some great stuff on there,
Speaker 1: some of it even I wrote. So the United Kingdom
Speaker 1: has two teams scan Nurse and sen Sore are both
Speaker 1: from the UK. Then you have Canada's cloud d x UH,
Speaker 1: and you have Slovenia's Messy Simplifying Diagnostics UH. From Taiwan
Speaker 1: is Dynamical Bio Markers Group and from India is Davontry.
Speaker 1: So these are the teams that are left. These are
Speaker 1: the final hen and they're all working on different implementations
Speaker 1: of this. Some of them, like I said, require like
Speaker 1: a blood sample, so that's going to make it a
Speaker 1: more challenging approach. When it comes to that consumer use,
Speaker 1: which are the ones that require tears. You just want
Speaker 1: someone to be weeping into a device, and that tells
Speaker 1: you whether or not you're your Well, I'd probably rather
Speaker 1: weep into a device than bleed into it. I can
Speaker 1: understand that, but I think I think what would be
Speaker 1: terrible is that I if I were making such a
Speaker 1: device and you wept into it, the only result you
Speaker 1: would ever get as it seems you are sad, and
Speaker 1: that would be well, that's not helpful at all. The
Speaker 1: future is in your tears. Well, the interesting one to
Speaker 1: look at right now, I think, I mean, all of
Speaker 1: these are interesting. But like you said, Joe, we we've
Speaker 1: actually have someone here who's looked into the Scanna do
Speaker 1: one specifically. Yeah, And they held an Indiego go campaign
Speaker 1: back for a product called This's Going to Do Scout,
Speaker 1: which is not going to be the final product for
Speaker 1: competition in in the tri quarter X Prize. However, it's
Speaker 1: it's related certainly, and and it's a it's an interesting
Speaker 1: funding project for the whole thing. The original goal for
Speaker 1: the campaign was a hundred thousand dollars. Did they make it?
Speaker 1: They raised one point six million? What high woe? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it was doing okay for itself. And they also
Speaker 1: raised another ten point five million in private financing. By
Speaker 1: the end of that ten million X Prizes looking pretty good.
Speaker 1: Uh So, this, this Scout is not really intended to
Speaker 1: to be a diagnostic tool as much as a monitoring instrument. Right,
Speaker 1: this isn't this like you said, this isn't their tri quarter.
Speaker 1: This is this was something that's sort of a first step,
Speaker 1: like a good a good foundation to work toward a triquarder.
Speaker 1: But it was really more about vital signs as opposed
Speaker 1: to all this diagnostic stuff right right with it with
Speaker 1: an emphasis on that non invasive kind of thing. Um.
Speaker 1: You know. It's it's this little gadget like like the
Speaker 1: size of a of a makeup compact or a hockey
Speaker 1: puck or something like that, and you hold it between
Speaker 1: two fingers too specific fingers um, and hold it up
Speaker 1: to your forehead and it can give you all of
Speaker 1: this vital sign stuff and it will connect automatically to
Speaker 1: an app that will record the data, can record it
Speaker 1: over time for you can analyze it a little bit
Speaker 1: and can let you upload it to your your doctor
Speaker 1: eventually if if you need to. That is still in development,
Speaker 1: So this is all kind of hypothetical, right, Well, that's
Speaker 1: really cool stuff. I mean the idea that you yourself
Speaker 1: are completing a circuit and that's what allows this device
Speaker 1: to actually take those readings right right this This is
Speaker 1: where that specific part comes in because it's the thumb
Speaker 1: and four finger of your left hand, and so you're
Speaker 1: completing this this bio circuit. Right electrodes touching the head
Speaker 1: and one finger function as an electric cardiogram or ECG
Speaker 1: that that measures your heart rate and rhythm against the
Speaker 1: other finger. There's a photo thesmo graph or PPG. That
Speaker 1: is a thing. Are you making this up? That? I
Speaker 1: feel like I've talked about it on this very show
Speaker 1: you probably over a year ago. There's a great so many,
Speaker 1: so many syllables. All right, So what does that do? UM?
Speaker 1: It reads your blood flow through your skin, usually using
Speaker 1: lasers or some some other kind of light based thing,
Speaker 1: and will measure your blood's oxygen saturation. UM. There's also
Speaker 1: an infrared thermometer touching your head that will take your temperature.
Speaker 1: So so yeah, it's uh. It can analyze all this
Speaker 1: data within like ten seconds hypothetically and send it via
Speaker 1: bluetooth to your smartphone UM and and connect with that
Speaker 1: app hypothetically. They'll also include like a little gidget to
Speaker 1: connect to your map function in your phone, so that
Speaker 1: if you do need medical attention, it can do to
Speaker 1: you to your local doctor or hospital. Oh yeah, so
Speaker 1: like you could say, like I'm not I'm feeling a
Speaker 1: little weird, and you hold it up and then it
Speaker 1: takes your readings and then it says, okay, well if
Speaker 1: you need to go to the urgent care center, it
Speaker 1: might be you know, take this route. That's kind of cool. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: although really, you know, like like we've been saying, the
Speaker 1: real idea behind behind the scout in specifically in the
Speaker 1: ex Prise in general is is to not you know,
Speaker 1: direct you to a doctor, but to kind of put
Speaker 1: this capacity within the hands of of consumers, right uh,
Speaker 1: certainly for diagnostics, yeah, they said in the x Prise itself,
Speaker 1: it says that these devices are not necessarily meant to
Speaker 1: get to a point where you could get a prescription
Speaker 1: based off the reading of the device, But they said
Speaker 1: that in the future we may even have gadgets that
Speaker 1: are able to do that, although you'd more likely see
Speaker 1: that under the under the umbrella of an official medical facility,
Speaker 1: right right, But you know, just saving time with you know,
Speaker 1: a not having to you know, not having you have
Speaker 1: to go to a doctor's office unnecessarily say that doctor's time,
Speaker 1: so that they can treat patients who really need help.
Speaker 1: So do you know if the name Scanna Do is
Speaker 1: supposed to be a mashup of the movie Scanners in
Speaker 1: the movies Zanna Do Gosh, I hope so I know
Speaker 1: it's a reference to Zanna Do, not the movie necessarily, No,
Speaker 1: I think it's probably the poem. But I love the idea.
Speaker 1: I love the idea of going around on roller skates,
Speaker 1: sing Olivia John and then your head explodes. That's what
Speaker 1: I was imagining when you all were talking about this device. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that'd be That'd be a pretty fantastic movie. Okay, someone
Speaker 1: call Olivia Newton John. We we need this. Ye, this
Speaker 1: is an important film, start a kickstarter. I legitimately love
Speaker 1: Olivia Newton John, so I will brook no actual mocking
Speaker 1: of her. Um so, no mocking. That sounds like a
Speaker 1: great movie fantasy the same page transitions as much as
Speaker 1: we all love Zanna Do and Scanners. Yes, okay, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: I heard you met some kind of medical device heroes
Speaker 1: at the con this weekend. I did. I actually talked
Speaker 1: to some folks who were interested in this, some of
Speaker 1: whom have worked on projects like this. Whether or not
Speaker 1: they're actually part of the the X Prize, I know
Speaker 1: one of them had been part of it. I don't
Speaker 1: know if he's part of the ten teams that have
Speaker 1: made that final cut, because while I was at Dragon Con,
Speaker 1: that's when this announcement came out. So it's possible that
Speaker 1: he had been part of one of the thirty some
Speaker 1: odd teams before it got cut down to ten. But
Speaker 1: they were talking about their reasons for getting involved in
Speaker 1: the first place, which I think will stay true whether
Speaker 1: they're part of the X Prize or not, because I
Speaker 1: know that a lot of these um organizations are looking
Speaker 1: at funding from various different groups, not just not just
Speaker 1: the X Prize. And uh, he was specifically thinking about
Speaker 1: creating a trike order like device for medical professionals to
Speaker 1: make their jobs easier, so getting vitals would be much
Speaker 1: more easy thing to do, and that you could continuously
Speaker 1: monitor those vitals. So this would be a device that
Speaker 1: presumably a patient would wear in some way or would
Speaker 1: otherwise be close enough to the pay to to have
Speaker 1: a continuous monitoring situation going on. Because he was saying,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of issues with things like sepsis. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, patients who go through surgery can suffer from sepsis,
Speaker 1: which is essentially blood poisoning. One of the most common
Speaker 1: causes of that as infection that there's some sort of
Speaker 1: infection comes up. That's why you see doctors and nurses
Speaker 1: with face masks on. It's not so that they don't
Speaker 1: get sick and so that they don't share their germs
Speaker 1: with patients, right, So, uh, sepsis can be really, really
Speaker 1: a dangerous situation if you if you're suffering from it,
Speaker 1: you may you may die. It can be deadly. Especially
Speaker 1: it's especially dangerous because it is difficult to diagnose until
Speaker 1: there's already a problem. Absolutely, yes, it can. It can
Speaker 1: reach its problem exactly, can reach a critical level before
Speaker 1: you're even aware that there's something serious going on. Uh.
Speaker 1: And even if you are able to you detect it,
Speaker 1: you know, late in the game and save the patient's life.
Speaker 1: There can be some life altering issues that result from this,
Speaker 1: like organ dysfunction or even having to have a limb
Speaker 1: amputated due to this. So we're talking about a really
Speaker 1: serious issue. And the thought is that with a continuous
Speaker 1: monitoring system, it can look for tiny, uh, tiny examples
Speaker 1: of things that might indicate that there are the conditions
Speaker 1: right for sepsis to happen, right, so that you can
Speaker 1: monitor it much more closely and intervene earlier before it
Speaker 1: becomes a serious issue. So if you pair this with
Speaker 1: a really uh, particularly complex algorithm, something that is really
Speaker 1: good at detecting these minute changes and raising an alert
Speaker 1: before it becomes a serious concern. The hope is that
Speaker 1: you save patient lives and improve quality of life post surgery.
Speaker 1: So that seem is like a really awesome goal to me.
Speaker 1: I mean, the idea of let's let's cut this down
Speaker 1: and make sure that people are having as good a
Speaker 1: an experience as they possibly can. I mean, surgery is
Speaker 1: already so traumatic for so many different reasons. You want
Speaker 1: to be able to minimize that trauma as much as
Speaker 1: you possibly can. And on that vein, there are other
Speaker 1: medical devices out there that have been proposed that aren't
Speaker 1: TRIKE orders. They're not meant to monitor or diagnose patients,
Speaker 1: but are rather meant to help surgeons do their work
Speaker 1: by making fewer mistakes in the process. And what there's
Speaker 1: one that's being developed out of the St. Michael's Hospital
Speaker 1: in Toronto that's dubbed the Surgical black Box exactly. And
Speaker 1: the idea is that it's a series of cameras that
Speaker 1: would be set up in the surgical room, surgical theater, whatever,
Speaker 1: microphones as well, uh and very complex computer algorithms that
Speaker 1: would study the movements a surgeon makes in real time
Speaker 1: for whatever surgical procedure it happens to be and make
Speaker 1: sure that the surgeon is operating within the right parameters.
Speaker 1: Uh And according to doctor Teodor Grant Sharoff, who works
Speaker 1: at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, he did us. He
Speaker 1: did a study where he looked at specific surgeries and
Speaker 1: he looked very closely and saw that even experienced surgeons
Speaker 1: were making up to twenty mistakes in a single surgical procedure. Now,
Speaker 1: these mistakes might not be life altering, they might not
Speaker 1: even be that that dangerous, They might not have any
Speaker 1: kind of negative impact on the patient, but they were
Speaker 1: still a mistake. And you figure, the more surgeries you
Speaker 1: have to perform within a given time frame, the more
Speaker 1: likely you are to make a mistake. Alert fatigue starts
Speaker 1: to set in. And the idea is that this device
Speaker 1: would this system, it's not even a device. The system
Speaker 1: would help surgeons by alerting them before they make a mistake.
Speaker 1: If they start to make a move that would result
Speaker 1: in mistake, they could be alerted, they could refocus and
Speaker 1: continue and thus eliminate more mistakes through a process, which
Speaker 1: I think is pretty cool. It's also I mean, just
Speaker 1: imagine how I I don't know how to implement that
Speaker 1: in a way that wouldn't be incredibly distracting if you're
Speaker 1: talking about twenty mistakes in a single procedure. Uh, then
Speaker 1: if it's going to alert you twenty times in a procedure,
Speaker 1: I mean, imagine driving a car and it's alerting you
Speaker 1: every time you do anything that is remotely outside the norm.
Speaker 1: So um iteration. Yeah, it would be a little that
Speaker 1: would be a frustrating experience every time you drive on
Speaker 1: the sidewalk I'm thinking of I actually free single time.
Speaker 1: I actually know someone who had a car. I think
Speaker 1: it was a rental are. It wasn't like their own car,
Speaker 1: but they had a car that would chime at you
Speaker 1: if you got to uh, like if you went above
Speaker 1: the speed limit for an area. Now, folks, we live
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, and if you are driving on one of
Speaker 1: the highways in Atlanta and you're driving the speed limit,
Speaker 1: you are going to cause an accident. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: way too slow for traffic. Most of the time, I
Speaker 1: would be skeptical that the car accurately knows the speed
Speaker 1: limit for any given space. Yeah. It may have even
Speaker 1: been that it just had a setting where it would
Speaker 1: chime if you win above, like if you win above
Speaker 1: fifty per hour, right, and which case you'd be yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly like, well, now the bombs activated, so you're just
Speaker 1: gonna have to keep going like this forever. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. It was. It was maddening to ride in
Speaker 1: that vehicle because now the person driving it seemed to
Speaker 1: be acclimated to it, but to anyone else, they think
Speaker 1: exactly like, if you're worrying it, then clearly it's not
Speaker 1: working in the first place. But any other passenger in
Speaker 1: that vehicle couldn't have a conversation because you just go crazy.
Speaker 1: But anyway, I assume that maybe uh, in the case
Speaker 1: of surgery, obviously you're talking about uh, a very delicate
Speaker 1: line of work that has huge impact to alter the
Speaker 1: life of the person that you're working on. So maybe
Speaker 1: in that situation it would be greeted more with, you know,
Speaker 1: a welcoming kind of of response, especially since if you
Speaker 1: even just want to get cynical and say I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna be totally just pragmatic. It cuts down on chances
Speaker 1: of things like like uh, malpractice, because if you're alerted
Speaker 1: ahead of time before it happens, then you can correct
Speaker 1: and if there are any complications that happened afterward, you
Speaker 1: may say, well, there were complications, but we have this
Speaker 1: record here that shows that our surgeon did everything exactly right.
Speaker 1: So you know, sometimes complications happen even if everything went
Speaker 1: as plans planned. Yeah. I also keep in mind that
Speaker 1: many surgeries occur over the course of hours and hours,
Speaker 1: and so twenty mistakes, you know, it sounds like a lot,
Speaker 1: perhaps if you're not thinking about the fact that I
Speaker 1: don't know how long these surgeries took. It might have
Speaker 1: been an eight hour periods were made. And again, when
Speaker 1: we say mistake, it could be something really really minor
Speaker 1: that ultimately didn't have an impact on the surgery. But
Speaker 1: it's still something that didn't happen as planned or didn't
Speaker 1: happen the way that technically it should have happened. So
Speaker 1: that's really interesting to me too. I'm really curious to
Speaker 1: follow this story further find out who's going to be
Speaker 1: the winner. Um. I hope that all the different teams
Speaker 1: are able to produce things that end up being really effective,
Speaker 1: whether it's in the original intended implementation or it evolves
Speaker 1: into something else. I think it's really exciting. This is
Speaker 1: very interesting. I mean, I wonder how non invasive it
Speaker 1: can get. Yeah, like, can it be something that is
Speaker 1: literally really like the scout where you hold it to
Speaker 1: your your temple and it's able to get a reading,
Speaker 1: or are we going to have to have some sort
Speaker 1: of sampling of body fluid or something. Company is also
Speaker 1: creating a urine test device. Yeah. Yeah, anything that can
Speaker 1: sample body fluids is obviously a different kind of category
Speaker 1: than something that you're just holding up to a person
Speaker 1: generally at them. Yeah. I mean, it's so like the
Speaker 1: non contact waving. Do do we think that's even realistic
Speaker 1: even in the long term. I don't know. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: kind of skeptical because I don't I don't even know
Speaker 1: how that would work if you're not even you know,
Speaker 1: touching somebody's skin. I think that if if the sensory
Speaker 1: technology from what I know about stuff like the ppg um,
Speaker 1: if if laser sensoring advanced to a point that you
Speaker 1: could really do that quick of a sweep and it
Speaker 1: could accurately measure almost the way that like ultrasound works
Speaker 1: right now, um, what's going on inside of you? Then maybe,
Speaker 1: But that is such a science fictional concept according to
Speaker 1: me right now that I mean, based on my albeit
Speaker 1: limited knowledge, I can't see that happening for forty years
Speaker 1: at least. I think. I think it requires a couple
Speaker 1: of things, and both of them are are big. One
Speaker 1: of them is, like you were saying, Lauren, the maturation
Speaker 1: of censoring technology so that they're able to pick up
Speaker 1: on very very subtle things very quickly and reliably. The
Speaker 1: other is identifying what those subtle things are for the
Speaker 1: case of every single possible disease or condition, and taking
Speaker 1: into account the fact that that many things have similar symptoms,
Speaker 1: and furthermore that there's there's also just like a lot
Speaker 1: of noise going on. Yeah, you know, it's exactly there
Speaker 1: could be stuff that that is outside the norm but
Speaker 1: isn't particularly dangerous or relevant to whatever is really the cause.
Speaker 1: I think at first it would probably be more like
Speaker 1: like web MD, where you know, like you stand someone
Speaker 1: and it's just like, well, probably you have cancer, right,
Speaker 1: or it'll say like you either have a headache or leprosy.
Speaker 1: Tass a coin. So I am. I'm with you, Lauren.
Speaker 1: I'm skeptical as well, Joe, What about you? What do
Speaker 1: you think I just said I was skeptical? Oh are
Speaker 1: you also scold? Maybe I didn't say I thought I
Speaker 1: implied you probably did, and I just already forgot. I
Speaker 1: don't know what I'm saying is I'm skeptical about the
Speaker 1: no the no context R. Yeah, I don't know how
Speaker 1: that would work. Um, but I mean I'm no expert, obviously,
Speaker 1: I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I
Speaker 1: would love it if we are amazed and find out
Speaker 1: that there is some sort of new way of doing
Speaker 1: that that would be phenomenal. But even if that never
Speaker 1: comes to pass, the work that these teams are doing
Speaker 1: is really inspiring to me, so I wish them all
Speaker 1: the best. I cannot wait to see which one of
Speaker 1: them walks away with the prize. And UH, I really
Speaker 1: am eager to find, doubt what what the other teams
Speaker 1: do as well. I mean, I think, I really think
Speaker 1: that everyone working on this is UH doing so that
Speaker 1: we all stand to benefit in one way or another
Speaker 1: from the work. So it's really exciting. If you guys
Speaker 1: out there have any suggestions for future episodes of forward thinking,
Speaker 1: Maybe there's some other X Prize you've always wanted to
Speaker 1: learn more about, or maybe there's some other type of
Speaker 1: technology or just an element of human existence and you're
Speaker 1: thinking what's that going to be like fifty years from now,
Speaker 1: hundred years from now. You should let us know. We'll
Speaker 1: take a look at it. We'll do a podcast about it,
Speaker 1: maybe we'll do a video about it. Drop us a
Speaker 1: line on Twitter, on Facebook or Google Plus, or handle it.
Speaker 1: All three is FW thinking, and we'll talk to you
Speaker 1: again really sooner. For more on this topic in the
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