So we are in DC for a big GE healthcare event, and got to see the Achilles Express, which analyzes your bone strength and provides information that doctors use to help check for osteoporosis (among other things? ). Its pretty cool, its almost an industrial appliance in the sense that it can be used at a Health Fair to quickly analyze hundreds or thousands of people, and then they come in for follow-up care if something is spotted.
Pretty cool, and I hadn’t heard of a Health Fair, which is basically where a bunch of people can come get some health tests, seems like half public service, half marketing outreach for hospitals. This is interesting territory to explore.
One question/thought I had is that most people are sometimes nervous to use devices like this because you either get baseline feedback (no problem) or negative feedback (this is how bad your bones are) but there’s no positive feedback. Like if you have really superb bone strength, you will get a higher number, but I don’t think this thing lights up like a pinball machine and makes you feel awesome about your great bones. Might be interesting to think about how to balance the good/bad feedback so you can have a really positive experience and thus motivate folks to get themselves checked out even earlier? Maybe something with the device, and maybe just the communications around what your motivation is in the first place to stick your foot in one of these.
