Precision Medicine

Early diagnosis can improve your chances of survival massively, and is also a big opportunity to new technology to help as shown in the Nokia Sensing XCHALLENGE entries. When visiting a GP it can be hard (maybe impossible) for them to determine whether you have a bacterial or a viral infection. Some ailments (e.g. pneumonia, diarrhoea) can be caused by both.

Hopefully one day (and not some distant time in the future) you will be able to be quickly scanned for a wide variety of diseases and infections - many more than could realistically be considered by a doctor considering general symptoms such as fever, nausea and pain - of course they have to assume its the most common ailments first so could be months before all the other possible causes are tested for and discounted.

Of course, even when the tests are available, it's still a matter of cost. However with new technologies prices could be slashed, permitting regular, wide sweeping tests. Imagine if every time you visited a GP, while you were waiting for your appointment, a point-of-care diagnostic instrument was able to run a hundred tests from a small blood sample - checking whether there were any serious ailments that needed to be dealt with. Catching a disease early inevitably makes the treatment significantly cheaper and, more importantly, more successful for the patient.