A revolutionary diagnostic kit

With these low cost devises, patients can access specialist medical opinion at low cost

Venkatachari Jagannathan
9 June 2004

Chennai: An electro cardio gram (ECG) test for Rs25? Whats more, an electronic ECG / stethoscope / thermometer / blood pressure / pulse measuring equipments and a software that enables video conferencing / electronic archiving and printing of medical records caan be had for Rs.10,000!

Well that is what the two young and enterprising promoters of the Neurosynaptic Communications (P) Ltd, Sameer S Sawarkar (31) CEO and Rajeev Kumar (32), COO, have done with their sexy five-in-one device, but christened unexcitingly as remote diagnostic equipment. At the market, the traditional equipment would cost around Rs.40,000, all together.

The battery-run device resembling an overgrown television stabiliser, is expected to revolutionalise healthcare delivery in rural areas and also help practicising doctors in managing their clinics.

Though all the measuring equipments look alike their traditional counterparts, the main components of the remote diagnostic equipment are electrodes and probes for ECG, temperature, blood pressure measurement, electronic stethoscope, a headphone for sound capture and the software. The ECG channel comes in two variants — a 5-lead, 7-channel devise and a 10-lead,12-channel piece. Incidentally, the temperature probe is designed to take the body heat under the armpit.

So how does this system work? Imagine a village internet kiosk with a personal computer and a printer. The remote diagnostic equipment is connected to the PC and the required software is loaded. The kiosk PC is then connected to the doctor's PC through a video / audio conferencing facility.

Once a villager comes to the kiosk, he can talk to the doctor via the video / audio conferencing facility. The doctor then activates the remote diagnostic equipment at the kiosk from his PC and advises the kiosk operator to take the patient's temperature (keeping the probe under the armpit). The doctor can see the reading on his computer. The diagram resembles the image that appears whenever we download something from the web.

 

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