Hacker News Reader

Comment by ars | Hacker News Reader

Want to disrupt the heart attack market?

Make a small home machine that can take an EKG and tell you if everything is fine, or if you should go get checked.

Adjust it to give some false positives, but no false negatives.

Make it cost around $50, and make sure it's fully reusable (i.e. you can borrow one from a friend for a quick check).

If machine learning is not up to the task, then send the EKG to a doctor, I believe they can read them in just seconds (correct me if I'm wrong), so it should not be expensive per-person.

To simplify it, have it connect via bluetooth to a phone, so you don't need to worry about WiFi, or a display. For reliability have it store the last 10 readings, even if not connected, so it should have a start button and indicator lights.

View on HN

An EKG machine cannot tell you whether you're fine or not. Not all heart attacks show up on EKGs, which is why the hospital will do a blood test for Troponin, too. A home Trop test would do what you want, but it can take several hours for the test to turn positive, and the hours between the onset of pain and the blood test showing that you're having a heart attack should really be spent attached to a cardiac monitor and in the presence of trained medical personnel, i.e. in hospital.

<quote> Want to disrupt the heart attack market?</quote>

Might be a good idea! Just don't stop there and be more ambitious. Kill the heart attack market as much as you can by making this technology widely available to those that need it at no cost. Find different ways to earn something from it...

If there is one thing that has been proven over and over again, it's that the market and health care don't go together in terms of efficiency. I'm not even touching the ethics angle here...

When I hear the n-th iteration of the basic income discussion and the "useless" class, health care strikes me as the area to make a real difference in, much more than "basic income". Because even the "useless" class will find ways to sustain itself, given adequate health.

Food as well. When I worked at a grocery store, it boggled my mind to watch food stamps families buy frozen meals. I wasn't on food stamps but I was paycheck to paycheck, what made me aware that it was cheaper and healthier to buy dry beans and raw veggies but them, unaware?

I don't think they're unaware. Frozen meals don't require preparation, when you're poor the mindset is very different, there were some really good articles on HN about that, I can't find them but for instance:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/12/junk-food-cravings-a...

This is already a thing apparently (I never tried it so I cannot vouch for it's accuracy/reliability):

https://www.amazon.com/AliveCor-Kardia-Mobile-Android-device...

That only checks for atrial fibrillation, not heart attack.

> make sure it's fully reusable (i.e. you can borrow one from a friend for a quick check)

No, just put 24-hour machines in malls, then you don't need to delay going to market trying to get it under $50

Good luck with the lawsuits when your machine gives the wrong answer.

Only two answers possible:

* go see a doctor

* urgently go see a doctor!

Then you get sued to pay for unnecessary bills.

doctors have insurance for when they do the same thing, there's probably something similar available.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com