Towards a medical tricorder: Defining medical conditions for consumer self-care with focus on non-invasive technologies

Health and fitness applications, fitness trackers and wearables show particularly high, sustained demand among private consumers. Highly efficient and cost-effective digital consumer electronic sensor technologies can also be used for medical purposes. Non-invasive technologies offer capabilities in the detection, measurement, and analysis of medical conditions carried out by private consumers. This paper investigates the technological readiness of consumer electronics for the measurement of vital signs, cardiovascular / metabolic and infectious diseases and shows how these technologies can promote self-care of consumers. We propose a 3-dimensional framework which characterizes diseases according to their burden of disease, their potential for self-care and the readiness of enabling technologies in consumer devices. With the evaluation of current technologies we show that a growing number of medical conditions, especially lifestyle-related cardiovascular diseases, can be identified and monitored easily, precisely and non-invasively by consumers. Consumer electronic technologies can no longer be seen only as a complementary element besides professional medical procedures but are increasingly able to provide medical diagnoses and monitor diseases without medical examination. Based on a 3D-self-care framework we propose strategies for three target groups: Consumers should focus on lifestyle-related diseases, healthcare payers should focus on research funding for technologies addressing high burden diseases and technology developers should focus on diseases that can be supported by close-to-market technology.