The 'Surgery Pod' is a unit installed in GP waiting rooms to take vital signs and transfer data to permanent health records. The only difference between my original proposal and this is the interface. This requires a very active input from the user, whereas the chair would take the data much more passively.
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| Surgery Pod |
Having the patients fill out a questionnaire or hold a small unit as opposed to just casually sitting on a chair, makes the process much more visible. This would increase patient trust of the technologies efficiency and accuracy as well as most probably saving costs.
The only possible drawback would be the social effects of patient self evaluation. Again, I am not convinced of where the responsibility would lie if the readings were incorrect for some reason. Perhaps the act of patient participation in their own exam would leave onus on the individual.
The results from the site seem promising although the financial savings are hard to quantify as the main benefits are an increase of productivity on the GP's part.
Another more mobile and personal application is that of a kind of 'smart clothing'. Sensors integrated into clothes and items attached to the bodies of users give a more individual and relevant result - the conditions in a waiting room are different to that of other more everyday environments.
It's somewhat a validation of the original concept to find it already exists.
