Thanks to Kinect for Windows, waiting for your doctor's appointment may be a thing of the past

With individual healthcare, half the battle is making the trip into the doctor’s office. Kinect for Windows may be able to help solve that dilemma in a partnership with another company, Sense.ly.

Telemedicine, as its often referred to, is a new trend in healthcare that is becoming increasingly popular.  As more doctors and other medical professionals employ the use of smartphones and tablets to relay medical information to their patients, telemedicine will continue to grow in demand. The convenience of not having to make an unnecessary trip to a doctor’s office, clinic, or hospital is a big draw towards telemedicine.

Sense.ly is a company that is using a Kinect for Windows-based system to create a nurse avatar, named Molly, to interact with, monitor, and provide follow-up care to patients.  Molly will have access to the patients’ medical information, and past medical history in order to figure out what is the best course of action to take for the patient’s current medical symptoms.  

With the help of Kinect for Windows, Sense.ly has enabled Molly to interpret a patient’s speech and body movements to effectively assess their medical needs. Sense.ly hopes to make interacting with Molly as natural as possible so that the patient can effectively communicate their symptoms.

By using Kinect for Windows, Sense.ly is able to make Molly analyze a patient’s body language, movements, and speech to find out what the medical problem is, if there is one. The patient would stand or sit in front of the Kinect sensor and the Kinect would take a picture of the patient. The picture would be sent to Molly and the medical assessment would begin. Depending on the ailment, all the patient would have to do is describe the pain or discomfort and Molly would be able to assess what steps to take next.

A growing number of hospitals and clinics are recognizing the value of Sense.ly’s Kinect-powered Molly. Molly would cut the time that most doctors and other medical professionals waste on handling patients with long-term conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure that require sometimes daily monitoring.

While Molly may not have the personal face-to-face care that you get when you meet with your doctor, Sense.ly’s Molly may provide better personalized care as the result of frequent medical condition monitoring and force the patient to become more involved in the care of their own well-being.

San Mateo Medical Center has already begun utilizing Molly, and is one of several major hospitals that have recently “added Molly to their staff.” For more information on Sense.ly’s Kinect-powered nurse avatar, Molly, head over to the VIA link below.