The MCA will evolve to become a Tricorder

MCA = Mobile Clinical Assistant. If you've used a Motion C5 or a Panasonic Toughbook H1, you know what I'm talking about.

Now, for those of you who are familiar with Star Trek: a tricorder is a handheld device used for scanning an area, interpreting and displaying data from scans to the user, and recording information. The medical tricorder is used by doctors to help diagnose diseases and collect bodily information about a patient.

Current MCAs include bar code scanners, RFID scanners, touch screens, and attachment points for other devices such as EKG leads, spirometry, ultrasound probes, pulse oximetry, etc. (many of these are via USB). Eventually, the MCA will evolve to become a tricorder.

So, who's going to be the first company to name their MCA a tricorder?

Star Trek and Medical Computers

You may not be surprised to know that I'm a Star Trek fan. I'm not a super-serious fan, but I'm also a bit more than your average fan. Anyways, I love the medical gadgets that appear in science fiction films. I often wonder if we'll see tablet PCs that are thin and light like the ones that appear on Star Trek. Maybe the color touch-screen Amazon Kindle will be the closest thing to the type of small tablet that's seen in science fiction movies.

The medical tricorder is seen in Star Trek as a handheld computer that scans people and immediate provides a diagnosis. We now have handheld ultrasound probes. You can even plug EKG leads to a handheld PDA (running the Palm OS or Windows Mobile). Will we see something like the tricorder in our lifetime?