6 ms·

All medical technology is insanely expensive. My wife is an ophthalmologist in private practice, and we've spent far too much money on diagnostic equipment. M

All medical technology is insanely expensive. My wife is an ophthalmologist in private practice, and we've spent far too much money on diagnostic equipment. My most frustrating single experience was spending $18,000 on a refurbished visual field last year (the machine where you see flashes of light in your peripheral vision and push the button), and having it show up running a custom version of Windows 3.1 and an actual honest-to-god 3.5" floppy drive. My current project is trying to figure out how to get digital visual testing systems (e.g., eye charts on a monitor) setup in her exam rooms. If I were to buy a system from a medical distributor, I'd be spending something like $2,000 - $4,000 per room. With an Atom-powered mini-PC, I could get Windows hardware and a monitor setup in every room for about $300/room. I was hoping I'd be able to find some open-source visual acuity software, but it doesn't seem to exist. Most software-only solutions are still over $1,000 per-license per-room. The best-looking and most reasonably priced Windows software I've found is $400/room. Bringing my total cost to a (somewhat painful) ~$700/room. There is one piece of good Visual Acuity software in the Mac App Store[2] that we'd be able to deploy in all 4 of our exam rooms with a single $99 license. So with 4x Mac Minis plus monitors, our per-room price would be pretty close to $700/room going that way too. But it seems like such a waste to spend $500 on a Mac Mini that will do nothing besides display some letters and symbols. What I'd love to see is industry associations working together to produce open source software that solves problems like this. Visual testing software isn't complex. A fairly reasonable investment could get something open source developed that would lower the cost of healthcare across the country, and worldwide. There are about 58,000 Ophthalmologists and Optometrists practicing in the United States. If we assume they average 2-lanes each, and open source software could lower the cost of visual acuity testing in each lane from $2,000 to $300, that would save $98-million. 1. http://konanmedical.com/chart2020/ http://konanmedical.com/chart2020/ 2. http://www.kybervision.com/mac/visualacuity/ http://www.kybervision.com/mac/visualacuity/

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
Aeolos 11y ago
Fancy that, my current project is to create a low-cost, high-quality optical coherency tomograph for private practitioners. I am planning to open-source the software and, depending on how things turn out over the next few months, possibly also the hardware designs. This device can immediately detect around 80% of the pathologies of the posterior eye segment. It's high time we made this part of first-line diagnostic exams.
- atourgates 11y ago
  That sounds amazing. What's the price point you're targeting? I think we paid ~$13K for our Atlas OCT (Placido Disk), and ~$43K for our Cirrus OCT (Spectral domain). Both refurbished, a few years old.
  - Aeolos 11y ago
    I can't go into too much detail (publications pending), but the initial prototype cost roughly $6K in components. The basic idea is find the optimal balance between hardware-vs-software and speed-vs-cost-vs-quality. The device attaches to a regular slit lamp, so that shaves off a big part of the cost too (no need for a separate examination table and optical assembly). This is spectral-domain OCT with tracking, so quality falls somewhere between Cirrus and Spectralis. However, I'm working on a few sweet mathematical tricks that actually surpass anything available on the market right now - hardware and software has advanced hugely over the past few years. We already have a hardware manufacturer and are currently fighting to secure the necessary funding. This technology has to make it out there.
    - elcritch 11y ago
      Great to hear you're helping to make that happen! So many medical devices (in clinical or research settings) are ridiculously outdated, expensive, and newer tech can often leapfrog the diagnostic capabilities. I've done research, mostly in soft tissue research, and it's crazy how much potential there is out there.
    - datenwolf 11y ago
bengarney 11y ago
You should contact me at ben AT theengine DOT co. I'm building an SDK for IoT app development that would be able to do what you want extremely easily on very cheap hardware. I'd love to talk with you about this. (My father in law is also a private practice opthalmologist.)
sjwright 11y ago
I'm sure you could find some second-hand early 4-5 year old Mac Mini computers at low prices. They're pretty robust little buggers. But even at $500 you're buying a computer that has an excellent track record for reliability and industry-leading warranty support. It might seem like overkill but compare that to the time investment you'll sink into a hacked and unsupported solution. (Believe me, I've played with enough of those cheap Atom PCs to know that I'd never, ever rely on them.)

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

Aeolos 11y ago

Fancy that, my current project is to create a low-cost, high-quality optical coherency tomograph for private practitioners. I am planning to open-source the software and, depending on how things turn out over the next few months, possibly also the hardware designs. This device can immediately detect around 80% of the pathologies of the posterior eye segment. It's high time we made this part of first-line diagnostic exams.

atourgates 11y ago
That sounds amazing. What's the price point you're targeting? I think we paid ~$13K for our Atlas OCT (Placido Disk), and ~$43K for our Cirrus OCT (Spectral domain). Both refurbished, a few years old.
- Aeolos 11y ago
  I can't go into too much detail (publications pending), but the initial prototype cost roughly $6K in components. The basic idea is find the optimal balance between hardware-vs-software and speed-vs-cost-vs-quality. The device attaches to a regular slit lamp, so that shaves off a big part of the cost too (no need for a separate examination table and optical assembly). This is spectral-domain OCT with tracking, so quality falls somewhere between Cirrus and Spectralis. However, I'm working on a few sweet mathematical tricks that actually surpass anything available on the market right now - hardware and software has advanced hugely over the past few years. We already have a hardware manufacturer and are currently fighting to secure the necessary funding. This technology has to make it out there.
  - elcritch 11y ago
    Great to hear you're helping to make that happen! So many medical devices (in clinical or research settings) are ridiculously outdated, expensive, and newer tech can often leapfrog the diagnostic capabilities. I've done research, mostly in soft tissue research, and it's crazy how much potential there is out there.
  - datenwolf 11y ago

bengarney 11y ago

You should contact me at ben AT theengine DOT co. I'm building an SDK for IoT app development that would be able to do what you want extremely easily on very cheap hardware. I'd love to talk with you about this. (My father in law is also a private practice opthalmologist.)

sjwright 11y ago

I'm sure you could find some second-hand early 4-5 year old Mac Mini computers at low prices. They're pretty robust little buggers. But even at $500 you're buying a computer that has an excellent track record for reliability and industry-leading warranty support. It might seem like overkill but compare that to the time investment you'll sink into a hacked and unsupported solution. (Believe me, I've played with enough of those cheap Atom PCs to know that I'd never, ever rely on them.)