patients can perform their own tests, draw their own blood, and more.
by rick richardson
technology this week
soon, you will find at a nearby mall, fitness center or office building an artificial intelligence-powered standalone doctor’s office where you, the patient, take your vital signs and draw your blood.
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several tech-driven initiatives, such as telehealth and concierge medicine, are upending the typical yearly physical. around the nation, a business called forward is setting up carepods, hoping people will routinely visit them for specific issues and preventative care.
a patient pays a $99 monthly subscription fee, uses their phone to unlock the door, settles into the chair and browses through several health apps. in addition to testing for heart problems, kidney disease and hypertension, you can also have your dna sequenced and undergo a biometric body scan. physicians examine your data off-site or you can electronically consult with a physician while in the carepod.
with plans to roll out many more in 2024, the first three carepods are located in sacramento, california; chandler, arizona; and chicago’s willis tower.
how it works
first, the device obtains baseline measurements of your metabolic processes to better evaluate your performance over time. when you step inside, “it basically loads up a bunch of different apps for you to play with,” said adrian aoun, founder and ceo of forward.
“let’s say you choose the body scan app,” he continued. “this is pretty cool. it’s like, ‘please stand still,’ and then it rotates you in a circle, takes a whole bunch of readings, shows you those readings on the screen, and explains them to you.”
if you select the “heart health” application, “it actually opens a tray and hands you a sensor, shows you how to hold that sensor against your heart, takes the readings, then explains them to you.”
when asked how patients would draw their own blood inside a carepod, aoun whipped out a small vacuum chamber that suctioned to his upper arm and siphoned out a small sample.
“in two to four minutes, this fills up with blood,” he said. “there’s no needle, there’s no knife, and nothing hurts right now.”
aoun, who is not a doctor, called the device a “capillary blood draw” and made comparisons to a “leech or hickey.”
the carepod menu also offers skin scans and mental health exams, with more tests to be added in the future.
carepods employ “proprietary digital technology and ai-supported clinician reviews to develop highly personalized health plans and track progress via mobile phones,” according to forward’s literature.
backstory
forward began by opening more traditional doctor’s clinics in about 20 cities. carepods are “our gen 2 product,” aoun said.
“we have over 100 doctors, and you can video with them whenever you want,” he stated.
in november, forward – which is funded in part by former google ceo eric schmidt – announced that it had raised $100 million to develop and implement carepods.
amazon is getting into this space as well with the amazon clinic, offering video visits and messaging with clinicians for common maladies.
other services – like doctor on demand and mdlive – also offer telehealth, but without the physical locations or on-site scans and monitors.
“if elon has the self-driving car, well, this is the autonomous doctor’s office,” declared aoun, a powerful technologist who had previously worked for former google ceo larry page running special projects and artificial intelligence.
despite the global shortage of medical experts, aoun sees the carepod as a means of achieving the widespread deployment of fundamental health care services.
“it’s not possible to scale physicians and nurses to the entire planet,” stated aoun, who was the founder of sidewalk labs, an urban innovation business. “so instead we said, ‘well, instead of health care being a service, maybe we should rebuild health care as a product.’
“maybe we should take every single thing that doctors and nurses are doing and just slowly but surely try and migrate it over to hardware and software.”
however, $99 a month is a steep price to pay for an unproven idea, and forward does not accept insurance. (aoun says he wants to reduce the price drastically.)
there are several possible ethical and practical difficulties in telemedicine.
a recent analysis by fair health found that nearly 30 percent of patients no longer see a primary care physician.
if skin patch vaccinations are approved, forward plans to add treatments such as flu injections as it expands carepods nationwide.
“we’re just going to keep going until we can deliver all this awesomeness for pennies on the dollar for the whole planet,” aoun said.