George Savage

I’ll be heading to Ethiopia for the second time on April 17 for two weeks of service.  My colleagues and I will be blogging each day from our church web-site, connectivity permitting.

The group I’ll be serving with is Mission to the World, a Christian organization providing care, treatment and social support to HIV/AIDS patients in Addis Ababa.  Another group of my colleagues will travel north to the city of Dese to work with local volunteers on public health efforts.

Internet connectivity in Ethiopia, when available at all, is usually via low-speed dial-up, so I probably won’t be able to update this blog while in Africa.

Time Magazine, in a February 26 article, describes the latest computerized personal trainers.  Read the article and bear in mind that the next generation of this technology — on-body sensors and computers leveraging wireless connectivity — may hold the key to improving chronic disease management, especially once pharmacologic therapy and individual physiologic response are incorporated into a personal treatment loop.

Imagine getting frequent flyer miles, health rewards points, or some other tangible benefit, simply by following the therapeutic regimen agreed upon with your doctor.  Follow your elderly mother’s medical progress by glancing at your phone while traveling a thousand miles away.  Discuss your medication dosage with a physician or nurse who is looking at personalized data in real-time rather than guessing about how best to change your prescription.  The possibilities are tantalizing.

Best of all, intelligent medicine is semiconductor-based, so we can bank on steadily increasing price-to-performance as volumes increase and computer technology advances.

Johnson & Johnson’s Lifescan company is taking tangible steps in this direction by Internet-enabling its OneTouch glucometers, allowing motivated patients and caregivers to manage diabetes more proactively.  Many other companies, including my own Proteus Biomedical, are pursuing thematically similar efforts.