by Jonah Comstock (AUGUST 13, 2018)
The astronauts currently on the International Space Station rely on telemedicine for everything from coughs to bruises. But as Dr. Shannan Moynihan, deputy chief of space and occupational medicine at the NASA Johnson Space Center, said in a presentation at HIMSS18, telemedicine has its limits for caring for astronauts.
Now NASA has taken the first steps toward tackling that issue as the Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH) at Baylor College of Medicine, which contracts with NASA, has awarded digital health startup VisualDx a grant to work on creating a diagnostic tool for astronauts on deep space missions.
“A lot of people think VisualDx is all about rashes or eye problems [where you can diagnose from] a photo, but VisualDx covers any symptom or differential diagnosis across medicine,” Dr. Art Papier, VisualDx’s cofounder and CEO, told MobiHealthNews. “And that’s why NASA was looking at it. They weren’t just looking for rashes in space, they were looking at diagnoses across medicine.”
Subscribe to VisualDx Today
Become a VisualDx subscriber today and gain access to clinical information and medical images of thousands of diagnoses. Your first 7 days are FREE.