If
you are, you're in luck. Elizabeth Holmes, a Standford University drop out
with knowledge in both chemical and electrical engineering, has been trying to
revolution blood work for the past decade.
Her lab, Theranos, allows small samples of blood to be used to complete
up to thirty tests in a matter of hours.
This is not just a small sample, by the way. This is a literal drop of blood: a finger
prick.
What
is so unique about Theranos’s system is the ability to test a single drop of blood
for many different conditions right in house.
Vials of blood at not taken, they are not mislabeled and handed off to
the wrong people, and it does not take days to transport the blood or the data from
various facilities. The results are
digital and transmitted from a single lab to Theranos’s database in seconds.
Without
going into any detail about the process, Holmes has partnered with Walgreens to
create facilities in California and Arizona for citizens to try the Theranos
system. They hope to spread across the
country, and eventually around the globe, revolutionizing the way bloodwork is
done and healthcare is provided all around the world.
So
what does this mean for society? On a
surface level, it saves people a lot of time and a lot of money. A simple finger prick can take seconds as
opposed to the minutes required for filling several vials of blood. Test results can be processed in hours
instead of days. Tests can cost
fractions of their normal cost for Medicare and Madicaid patients. Obviously, this allows for shorter lab
visits, faster diagnoses, and cheaper costs for health care, especially for
those without insurance.
The
benefits, however, go much deeper. Many
people have more than a simple dislike for needles, but a legitimate fear of
them, as well as the sight of blood.
Some people feel so much anxiety about getting bloodwork done that they
would rather just deal with whatever sickness they have. This can be incredibly dangerous, especially
for conditions and diseases like HIV, other STDs, diabetes, and heart disease. Theranos’s process actually allows for
patients to get diagnosed earlier on, in less time, for less money, with much
less physical pain and anxiety. This
means patients can receive treatment sooner as well.
This
also means that patients’ progress with different drugs and treatments can be
tracked more efficiently as well.
Patients who have begun a particular drug regime can simply have their
finger pricked once a week to see if any changes in their condition have occurred,
as opposed to waiting weeks for new scripts, getting vials of blood drawn, and
waiting days to get the results. This
truly expedites the process, allowing for better tailored, efficient treatments
for every patient.
With
the current Ebola scare going on, this definitely makes me considered the
possibilities of revolutionizing healthcare in and out of the United States. This kind of technology could help not only
U.S. citizens, but people worldwide, especially those in more underdeveloped
countries, such as those where Ebola is such an issue (Liberia, Guinea,
etc.). I am very interested to see where
Theranos is in five years and if it lives up to its potential. After all, Holmes reminds us that “The art of
phlebotomy originated with bloodletting in 1400 B.C. and the modern clinical
lab emerged in the 1960s—and it has not fundamentally evolved since then.” I think it’s definitely time for an upgrade.
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