A Rub On Tatoo for Diabetics

I’ve been covering a lot of wearables and sensors over on Smart Phone Healthcare through the years. It’s been great to see the evolution and I still think we’re just at the very beginning of what is going to be possible with these health sensors. However, the leaks in the damn are starting to appear and soon we’ll have a tidal wave of amazing health data from these health sensors.

Don’t believe me? Check out this story on Gizmodo about a Rub On Tattoo that measures a person’s blood glucose levels. For those too busy to click over, here’s an excerpt:

Pricking your finger for a blood glucose test will never, ever be fun. Thankfully, scientists have been hard at work on a bloodless and needleless alternative: a rub-on temporary tattoo that, as weird as it sounds, gently sucks glucose through the surface of the skin.

The thin, flexible device created by nanoengineers at UCSD is based on the much bulkier GlucoWatch, a now-discontinued wristband that worked through the same glucose-sucking principal. But the electric current GlucoWatch used to attract glucose to the surface of the skin was too high, and wearers were not keen on the discomfort. This temporary tattoo gets around the problem by using a gentler but still effective current.

Unfortunately, we’re still a few years out from this becoming a market ready product, but it’s another illustration of the kind of research and ingenuity that’s being put into the health sensors marketplace. I’m personally concerned about my risk for diabetes, and so I’m extremely excited about new developments around diabetes. However, this is just one of many more developments that are going to change the world of healthcare as we know it.

What do you think of this new wave of sensors? How will the medical establishment integrate all this new data? What other changes are happening which we should keep an eye on? I don’t think most doctors, practices, hospitals, EMR companies, etc are ready for what’s happening.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

   

Categories