Health monitoring with wearable microneedle technology
Ronen Polsky |
TEDxABQ
• September 2017
To date, the personal diabetes meter is the only true commercial success that has found widespread use and allows individuals to perform at home medical blood tests without a specialist present and use the corresponding results to make an informed medical decision. However, with the advent of wearable technologies, a new paradigm in healthcare is on the horizon. The ability to continuously monitor a range of relevant physiological conditions throughout a person’s normal routine will allow unprecedented medical information to be collected that saves time, money, and ultimately will assist the healthcare specialist and lead to a dramatic improvement in quality of life. Unfortunately, first generation wearable technology falls fall short and the prospect of a universal Star Trek “tricorder” medical device is still far away. Microneedle technology being developed at Sandia National Laboratories and the University of New Mexico might be the first technological solution to this problem.