Medical phone, vibrating earphone shine at trade show
Are you having chest pains and wondering if you should rush to hospital? The EPI Life, one of the gadgets on show at a Singapore trade fair, could be what you need. At first glance, the 106-gram (3.7-ounce) touch-screen phone looks like any other fancy smartphone, but its tiny frame also holds an electrocardiogram (ECG) machine, which can put your heart reading literally at your fingertips. An ECG, which can detect abnormal heart rhythms, is usually carried out at a hospital or clinic, but Chow U-Jin, medical director at Ephone International, which developed the EPI Life, said the device is able to condense the whole ECG process onto a mobile platform, making it a life-saving gadget. And when it's not on medical duty, EPI Life works just like a normal phone. "Inside this device there exists an ECG machine, which allows a non-medically trained person to perform an ECG by him or herself just by touching their fingers on the sides of the phone," he told AFP. The person's chart is relayed to a 24-hour centre in Singapore and read by doctors and nurses. An assessment is delivered to the user within minutes with a text message, enabling prompt action where necessary. "Instead of having to run off to a clinic whenever you have chest pains, you do the ECG immediately and that's where you have the maximum chance of capturing an abnormal rhythm," Chow said. The phone, which has been launched in Singapore, is aiming to sell 10,000 to 15,000 units in Malaysia, Indonesia and Hong Kong by the end of this year.
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