There’s another technology that might be coming to a doctor near you which can really accelerate the use of various handheld devices. “Imagine ultrasound technology in a GP’s office,” Gorfinkel said. “Right now, when GPs want to know what’s happening in a person’s body, they have to send them to a separate radiology lab where they have to make an appointment, and sometimes wait weeks to get that appointment, and then come back for their answers. But imagine in very Star Trek fashion that a doctor could pull out an ultrasound probe. It should allow us to take a look at our phone and diagnose things like ectopic pregnancy, diagnose why a person has a heart murmur, diagnose acute appendicitis, pneumonia… And if you think I’m talking Star Trek, actually, I’m not. This technology exists. And medical students in modern schools are being taught how to use it.”
The doctor said that even though it might sound paradoxical, she’s most excited about changing the mundane. The steps that might seem simple can often snowball into big differences.