This affordable telemedicine diagnostic machine could disrupt healthcare in India

 18-Nov-14, VentureBeat

Frustrated at the lack of interest by the medical establishment in reducing the costs of diagnostic testing, and seeing almost no chance of getting the necessary research grants, Kanav Kahol returned home to New Delhi in 2011. He was a member of Arizona State University’s department of biomedical informatics. Kahol had noted that, despite the similarities between most medical devices in their computer displays and circuits, their packaging made them unduly complex and difficult for anyone but highly skilled practitioners to use. And they were incredibly expensive - costing tens of thousands of dollars each.

Kahol and his Indian engineering team built a prototype of a device called the Swasthya Slate (which translates to “Health Tablet”) in less than three months, for a cost of $11,000. This used an off-the-shelf Android tablet and incorporated a four-lead ECG, medical thermometer, water-quality meter, and heart-rate monitor. They then enhanced this with a 12-lead ECG and sensors for blood pressure, blood sugar, heart rate, blood hemoglobin, urine protein, and glucose.

Image: Swasthya Slate

In high volumes, the Swasthya Slate can be produced for as little as $150 per unit. This will surely make a difference in the developing world, where the ratio of doctors to patients is often as low as 1:50,000 instead of the 1:1,000 that the World Health Organization recommends.

The Swasthya Slate is not FDA-approved and may never be. The bureaucracy and time delays for testing sensor-based medical devices often discourage medical innovation in the US. Instead, the device will have been tested by tens of millions of people abroad before finding its way to the US.

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