Tag: medical technology

These devices are being implemented in Sri Lanka as a type of preventative effort in animal-borne diseases.

A new program is being implemented called the Sri Lankan Wildlife Health Centre that will be using mobile technology through the co-funding of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in order to be able to monitor the health of animals.

The idea is to be able to prevent the outbreak of disease and to detect it if it happens.

Part of the goal of this effort is also to be able to broaden the role of Sri Lankan veterinarians so that they can move into zones such as farm practices and antibiotic resistance. Mobile technology is going to play an integral role in this effort. The reason is that in the country, mobile phones are a great deal more than simply a way to communicate with other people and surf the internet. In the case of field veterinarians, for instance, it expands their resources considerably because they would otherwise be quite limited. With the tech, though, they can track infectious disease outbreaks within animals.

Using this mobile technology system, it allows for a considerably faster response to infections as they emerge.

The earlier veterinarians can take action in this type of issue, the better the chance they have at saving lives. The reason that this is important is that outbreaks of infectious diseases in animals makes up 60 to 75 percent of all emerging infectious diseases. Therefore, by reducing the spread of disease while it is still in animals, it plays a meaningful role in being able to reduce the exposure to humans.

As many of the countries where these types of disease outbreak are problematic are also countries that have limited resources to control them, this new system using mobile devices is meant to overcome that barrier and become an integral component of public health.

Mobile technology is now one of the various elements that are being tested for the improvement of the veterinary public health system in Sri Lanka. These types of system monitor disease outbreaks in animals despite the slim resources that they have. The researchers in the current team are looking into novel methods of engagement of locals in disease detection and prevention, governance of veterinary public health, training public health leaders, and connecting national and local officials.

A new tech from Purdue U. and Indiana University School of Medicine will guide docs with AR instructions.

Scientists working together at Purdue University and the Indiana University School of Medicine have come up with a new augmented reality based technology designed to assist military surgeons to complete vital procedures on the battlefield.

The tech will offer them guidance through both visual and audio assistance from remote specialists.

The idea is to use more than just verbal instructions when these military surgeons are coping with challenging trauma cases. While there are already systems in existence that give physicians located far away the ability to mark up video that is sent to him or her from a surgeon who is already working on a patient, there are some drawbacks to the current method. For example, though the video is from the perspective of the surgeon actually conducting the procedure, the notes from the assisting remote surgeon are displayed on a monitor nearby. This requires the surgeon to continually look away from the patient and the screen where the instructions are being shown. This new augmented reality based technology could change that.

The System for Telementoring with Augmented Reality (STAR) displays the information before the surgeon’s eyes.

It provides more than notes made on a video screen. Instead, it offers a more natural way of sharing information between two doctors who are on different parts of the planet. This allows them to use the overlay of AR technology to display notes or indicate specific positions on the patient that indicates particular points on the anatomy so that the surgeon is seeing it over his or her reality instead of on a screen.

This augmented reality technology offers a few different visual recognition algorithms in order to make sure that the text remains stable above the applicable locations, even if the surgeon changes his or her view away from the field of view where the text applies. This system uses transparent overlay on top of the working field so that a remote surgeon can point things out and add text right in front of the surgeon’s eyes without ever requiring the surgeon to look away from what he or she is doing.