Healthy.io is an Israeli company that has a great idea about what else a camera could be used for. Basically, they came up with the idea of using the camera on a smartphone to more accurately and reliably measure urine dipsticks. For those of you that haven’t had the pleasure, these are thin sticks of plastic that you dip into someones urine, they have 1-10 areas on them that change colour and usually after a minute you read them compared to a reference colour range. They can be notoriously difficult to read. Is it a trace or 1+ or 2+. Often people don’t wait long enough or wait too long.
The idea that Healthy.io have is you dip the stick and press go you put the stick in a surround which has a huge amount of colour panels on it. This allows the camera to have a reference colour no matter what the light conditions. After a minute it beeps and takes the image. It then processes the image and gives you an accurate result.
The result is displayed and can be sent to an EPR if needed. It could be used by a patient or by a healthcare worker. As it comes with clear instructions the theory is you don’t need to be a nurse to use it. This also means, in theory, you can check who is doing the test, exactly when and how often. Some people are notorious for over testing and won’t admit it and this could be proof. I have heard stories of care workers, saying a test was negative when it wasn’t actually done, or indeed saying a test was positive so the person got antibiotics given when they hadn’t read it properly.
Their website has a great visual demo.