celebrity grammy award: Future of Mobile Technology Combining DNA, Personal Health Records, Food and Food Supplement Products With Bar Codes on Your Smartphone

If your head is not already hurting with some of the new mobile technology in healthcare, it will now <grin>. You also hear me too complaining from time to time about lack of collaboration with mobile applications, in other words applications that stand alone and do one thing only, and with this article we have what I have been preaching about, collaboration. If I have to hear one more time about the mobile application that sends text messages to pregnant women I think I will scream as it’s a limited crowd. It’s ok but as fast as things are moving today, let’s go to the next level and see some collaboration like what it noted here and some relief from what I refer to as “Junker” mobile health applications. Don’t just write one because you can, collaborate with others and come out with something that does more than one thing!

Do I have a hard time keeping current with all of this, sure I’m just like everyone else but try to simplify and hit some highlights for awareness so even if you are not using today, at least you might have some knowledge of what’s coming. The one application featured here, not out for public release yet, shows the use of DNA and genomics information coupled with the use of Personal Health Records, specifically Google Health and HealthVault with using “bar codes” to determine which foods or food supplements are best for you. I know sometimes one want to say, the heck with this as I don’t have time to study and learn all of this, I get that way too but again this is a preview of where this is going with the company HolGen Tech which can bring in genomic sequencing information from several different sequencing companies. You can read further but can see that 2 of the most popular DNA sequencing companies are listed 123 and Me and Navigenics. If you have some basic sequencing information available, it can help you avoid peanuts as an example if that is an issue for you.

Clinical Trial information and genomics use with personal health records is not new and Scripps as an example has been using the technology with HealthVault for a couple of years now. I learned about that when I spoke with Steve Shihadeh, VP of Microsoft Health solutions a couple years ago.

Steve Shihadeh, VP Microsoft Health Solutions Group – The Amalga Software Solution for Aggregating Hospital Information (Interview)

When using mobile technology too, bar codes are the answer to store and help analyze information. If you read here often enough you know I like 2D bar codes and have had this campaign for the FDA, device companies and pharma to start using them. I almost think this has to be a separate bar coding solution as there’s only so much that can fit on the standard bar codes we have on products and mixing data bases might be little too much to do it correctly as we are talking masses of information. One company that uses bar codes is NutriSleuth so now we are moving the next level up to include DNA sequencing information along with nutrition, so see where this is headed?

NutriSleuth UPC Barcoding Company Kicks the FDA in Back End When It Comes to Food Safety-Using a Smartphone to Scan for Info

By now you are probably wonder how can I stand all of this new technology and use it, good question as I sometime ask the same and I’m a data base person as well as a consumer too so it applies to me to figure it out too and at some point I’m going to ignore what ever it tells me and eat that chocolate bar, and we will all do that from time to time as nobody is perfect. The video below gives you an idea as to how this will work with mobile technologies with the Algorithm based approach for genome analysis processes.

HolGen DNA Personal Health Records

On the topic of clinical trials and personal health records there’s a company that has been around for a while that allows you to use your stored information in Google Health or HealthVault to find clinical trials that best meet your needs, TrialX. You can do a search of course on the web, but why not take the data in your PHR and cut to the chase here. I have their search widget here on the Medical Quack available for a quick search at any time, so give it a try if you are looking for trials and down below there’s a quick summary of trial news.

TrialX and CenterWatch Partner to Help Locate Additional Clinical Trial Information - Integrate with Personal Health Records

If you look around the right hand column of the blog you just never know what you might find lurking over there. Also there’s always links to personal health records if you want to read up and try one out, all of them are free.

I do talk quite a bit though about needing role models so this looks like a perfect place to once more elaborate a little here too on the fact that in the social network world we live in today we have all these folks wrote write wonderful reviews about what “you” should do and yet don’t explore and at least play around with some PHR software, just to see what’s there. We have folks in the government that last I looked they are consumers too that won’t share anything and I can almost bet they haven’t explored any of this for their personal use, and I run into Microsoft employees too that have no clue what Healthvault is so it’s all over the place. Actually this week I went into a bit of a rant about this and I get so tired of all the news and studies that talk about how stupid consumes are as for some reason or so they seem to use negative marketing here to get people involved and to me that’s dead end subject, as it does nothing and we have all the so called experts on consumer products themselves that do nothing but preach how “you” need to do something, but again consumer products and we are all consumers and perhaps when “experts” realize they too are consumers we might see some headway here when folks begin to “get over themselves”.

Cease and Desist Request for Publishing News and Studies That Report on How “Stupid” Consumers and Patients Are

There certainly are a lot of choices out there today and having “smarter experts that acknowledge this fact would be a real plus too! This post is written for an awareness purpose and I’m not saying you have to run right out and be sequenced, although you can if you want, but I’m rather just adding some information on what’s on the roadmap. I still maintain my campaign though on the FDA recalls as they have such a mess there and it looks like luddite heaven over there and once again it’s collaboration that will win and not the great white hope concept and I hope in the future someone cuts to the chase here and cans the “Innovation” concept and starts talking about “Collaborate to Innovate” instead. We have no lack of innovative people in the US, just look at the funding going on today, anything short of having a pulse seems to be raising money in healthcare. In the not too distant future a sequencing machine will sit on the desk just like a printer and the next step is mobility with using the information.

Life Technologies Debuts Ion Torrent Machine-Cheap Genes at $500 for Single Sequence

Iron Torrent

Coming back around here this is also why I harp on our lawmaking processes so if you have viewed the video above and read some of this information, what in the world at they doing for information to create better laws? I don’t see much and again they need it as what they do affects all of use and if we have one end of the world on technology on fire, what’s waiting at the lawmaking end, a bucket of water? I kind of thought so when I listened to Elizabeth Warren and all her struggles to set up a simple agency to help people understand the “code” (her words) processes so we can function and not get lost in the algorithms. The link below is very good and she explains what’s happening and her battles to set up her agency (videos) too with lawmakers and some digital illiteracy sinking there too.

Elizabeth Warren Talks With Jon Stewart -the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that Congress and the Judicial System are Trying to Kill-One Nail in the Coffin Today From the Supreme Court Ruling

In summary I hope you found some of this useful as a preview of what’s in store with mHealth technologies and again my cry out for digital literate lawmakers as they will kill us all eventually with “non participation”. BD

As if diagnosing and treating illnesses as they manifest weren't enough futuristic pocket power, along come apps that guide patients on how to prevent or postpone future ailments.

Consider the Personal Genome Assistant app. First, the patient has a genetic test or genome sequencing to determine genetic predispositions to specific diseases. Then the PGA incorporates genome sequence or partial sequence data interpreted by the new fractal science with personal preference and known health data -- which is stored at online cloud facilities like Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Health Vault or Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Health -- to optimize choices as one goes through their day to prevent or postpone the predictable health problems.

If the patient knows, for example, that he has a predisposition to diabetes and is currently lactose intolerant and allergic to peanuts, he can proactively make choices to prevent health problems now and in the future.

The app allows the user to scan bar codes of food and supplement products using a smartphone's camera. The app then immediately analyzes the product's ingredients and informs the user whether consumption of the product is good or harmful for either of the three of his health concerns. In mere minutes, the user knows exactly how the product will affect him now -- and in the years to come.

Andras Pellionisz, the developer, is a cross-disciplinary scientist and technologist with Ph.D.'s in computer engineering, biology and physics. He founded HolGenTech as a genome analytics company to leverage high-performance hybrid computer hardware with a novel, fractal algorithm-based approach for genome analysis and recommendation.

The PGA has not been publicly released yet, but has applications for any and all of the growing number of direct-to-customer personalized medicine models, such as 23andMe, Navigenics, or GenePlanet in Europe, and Theragen Bio in Asia.