[HN Gopher] First AI medical device that detects major skin canc...
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First AI medical device that detects major skin cancers received
FDA approval
Author : alimehdi242
Score : 23 points
Date : 2024-01-19 18:03 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (digialps.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (digialps.com)
| PUSH_AX wrote:
| > the device will be priced through a subscription model at $199
| monthly for five patients or $399 monthly for unlimited use.
|
| Is this normal in the medical industry? It seems a little absurd
| to me but I know nothing about medical tech.
| m_a_g wrote:
| It's B2B so I'd say it's normal.
| pixl97 wrote:
| In general med tech = so expensive your eyes bleed and your
| brain melts.
|
| I'm assuming they've dropped in price a pretty good amount now,
| but digital x-ray machines with the require software were near
| hundred thousand price range and typically tied around some
| windows operating system. So if the controller came with XP,
| never expect to go to a new operating system. The companies
| general answers were, oh, you need a controller with a new OS,
| spend another $100k for the next gen, which unless you're
| pumping out huge numbers of xrays was just not going to happen.
| parl_match wrote:
| >So if the controller came with XP, never expect to go to a
| new operating system.
|
| That's not necessarily a bad thing!
|
| In our industry, the idea of something using XP is
| ridiculous. Applying our experience to the medical field is a
| bad idea!
|
| It's an appliance. It doesn't really matter what OS it runs
| as long as its stable and certified to do. It spits out
| imagery which you can then process and view on any compatible
| device - often a reasonably modern computer running some sort
| of health informatics platform.
|
| For what it's worth, the "XP" OS is often licensed and
| supported for well longer than a consumer SKU. IIRC microsoft
| provided support and security updates for embedded/appliance
| applications until 2019!
|
| These devices are often not openly networked, or if they are,
| they are through some sort of gateway that's appropriately
| locked down and updated.
| pc86 wrote:
| It's an appliance with huge gaping security flaws that its
| very creator says you should use under approximately no
| circumstances.
|
| > For what it's worth, the "XP" OS is often licensed and
| supported for well longer than a consumer SKU. IIRC
| microsoft provided support and security updates for
| embedded/appliance applications until 2019!
|
| You're 100% right but that still means the thing has been
| sitting around for half a decade with no security updates
| whatsoever.
|
| There is a fine line between stability and simply being a
| miser and refusing to update things within a reasonable
| period of time. Healthcare, especially corporate healthcare
| run by people other than physicians, is far to much on the
| miser end of the spectrum.
| pixl97 wrote:
| >These devices are often not openly networked, or if they
| are, they are through some sort of gateway that's
| appropriately locked down and updated.
|
| Possibly in major hospitals with large large IT teams...
|
| But I've worked in a lot of smaller clinics and the term
| 'often' changes to 'almost never'.
| parl_match wrote:
| $400 a month, in a reasonably busy dermatologists office, would
| probably come to about $20 "per use". A lot less if you have
| multiple patients use it a day.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| It's normal in the US. Outside the US things are more
| competitive as companies chase fewer buyers/dollars and have to
| sell things cheaper. Sometimes this makes certain countries
| worthless in the eyes of a medical device manufacturer
| pkaye wrote:
| > The FDA approval was based on results from a multicenter
| clinical trial led by the Mayo Clinic involving over 1,000
| patients across 22 clinics.
|
| Medical tech often requires clinical trials so there is some
| cost to that. And it can also limit how quickly competitors can
| create a competing device. But $399 monthly for unlimited use
| doesn't see so bad when a dermatology clinic might see hundreds
| of patients a month.
| xnx wrote:
| Google does something similar with Google Lens, though I can't
| tell what its current status is. Might work outside of the US.
|
| One of the links on their information page is broken:
| https://health.google/consumers/dermassist/
| candiddevmike wrote:
| The article says this product uses wavelengths to detect
| abnormalities, DermAssist seems to be using pictures only. The
| latter seems like more of a toy and less a real diagnostic
| tool.
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