Automated Doctors: Cell Phones as Diagnostic Tools

“Here we are just playing Angry Birds ,” says Wilson To. “How do we unlock [the] smartphone's potential?”Wilson ToTo is trying to do just that at Caradigm, a joint health technology venture of GE Healthcare and Microsoft Corporation. To is the lead researcher and codeveloper of Lifelens, a mobile phone–based diagnostic tool. Lifelens is still in its visionary stage, but the hope is to change point-of-care (POC)3 diagnostics through the application of artificial intelligence and computer vision technologies. In the first iteration of this technology, Lifelens assesses blood samples for malaria. The Lifelens concept joins the innovations from at least a handful of other teams pushing forward in the field of cell phone–based malaria microscopy. We spoke to Dr. To about his team's healthcare tool, as well as about the larger movement toward mobile phone–based diagnostic tools.Today, says To, most field diagnostic tools collect data, but ultimately a physician or trained healthcare worker needs to analyze the data to assess the finding. Instead, To has visualized something that does not require a trained healthcare worker. He wanted to create something foolproof—like a doctor in your hand—as well as something that brings the accuracy and clarity of the laboratory into the field: “Can we create a computer to look for signs of disease?” asks To.In 2011, To's group unveiled Lifelens, a smartphone diagnostic system that runs on the Microsoft Windows Phone 7 operating system and that its creators claim can take a picture of a blood sample and analyze it for malaria (Fig. 1). The geolocation of that blood sample, including when it was taken, can then be uploaded into the network cloud to provide real-time worldwide data about malaria outbreaks that Lifelens hopes will help the epidemiologist track—and prevent—disease.Fig. 1. An early prototype of the Lifelens malaria-detection smartphone application.To's interdisciplinary team of a biologist, engineers, …