[Infowarrior] - Cellphone Medical Test Wins NPR's 'Big Idea' Contest

[Richard Forno]

(c/o JC)

Cellphone Medical Test Wins NPR's 'Big Idea' Contest

by Joe Palca

https://www.npr.org/2012/09/05/160542842/cellphone-medical-test-wins-nprs-big-idea-contest

September 5, 2012

Most of us would like to make life better for people in developing countries. Most of us don't do anything about it. Catherine Wong is different. She's the winner of our Joe's Big Idea video contest. She not only came up with a big idea to improve health care for the poor but also built a prototype to test it.

Wong, 17, invented an electrocardiogram that transmits real-time medical data through a cellphone.

"Just the kind of technology that 'flattens the Earth' for better medical care," says Eric Topol, a cardiologist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., who reviewed Wong's video for NPR. An electrocardiogram, which measures the heart's rhythm, is a basic and widely used medical test.

Catherine set out to make an ECG for the 2 billion people in the world with no access to health care. She's a junior in high school in Morristown, N.J. Her device uses off-the-shelf electronic components to pick up the heart's electrical signals, then transmits them via cellphone to a health professional who can analyze them.

"It is a leapfrog approach that bypasses standard pieces of medical equipment that are expensive and not readily available to these populations," says Elizabeth Nabel, president of Brigham and Women's and Faulkner Hospitals and a former director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health.

Lots of people are trying to develop mobile health tools for the developing world, Nabel noted. But she praised Wong for building a working prototype. "I give her kudos for her embracing knowledge across multiple scientific fields, her creativity, her vivid and concise presentation and her enthusiasm. (She even got the cardiology right!)"

The contest judges on NPR's Science Desk — Rebecca Davis, Michaeleen Doucleff, Dick Knox, Joe Neel and I — also liked the fact that Wong actually tested her idea. We chose her entry from the 10 contest semifinalists, who were selected by voting on YouTube, for its clear goal, scientific accuracy and feasibility.

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