Credits Tony Buser

 

Have you ever wished it was easier to communicate with your doctor how your medication was working?  Wouldn’t it be easier for data regarding how your body responds to the medicine to automatically be sent to the doctor’s office?  Well it seems that in the not to distant future, your smart phone will be able to work in pair with a “smart pill,” which contains a biodegradable electronic chip that monitors how your body responds to the medicine, broadcasts the information to your iPhone, which then emails the information to your physician.

This revolutionary idea is currently being explored by Proteus Biomedical and Novartis, as they plan to make patient/doctor relationships more connected through the implementation of smart pills.

One application of smart pills will be glucose meters, which will connect with iPhones to retrieve, archive, and transmit data.  Upon ingestion, these smart pill glucose meters will monitor sugar levels throughout the body and automatically send doctors detailed reports.  This can be especially useful for diabetes patients, as it is extremely important to constantly regulate their blood sugar level.

The possibilities for this new idea are truly endless, and those close to the development process reveal that smart pills will provide detailed information on how individual patients respond to therapy and could help facilitate the rise of an era of personalized medicine.

 

 

(link for picture credits: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tbuser/2675780623/ )

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