Gates: Robots are next hot health technology

The potential for mobile devices to improve public health is limited but offers some advantages over traditional computing technologies that simply facilitate research and collaboration, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said Tuesday. But robots, he argued, could be the next hot health technology.

The comments came at a conference to showcase advances in mHealth, or mobile health, organized by the National Institutes of Health, the independent nonprofit Foundation for NIH and the mHealth Alliance. Cell phone communications in developing countries offer a chance to "be there with the patient in the clinic, which may not be staffed with a fully trained doctor," said Gates, who also chairs the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which awards grants to support global health and reduce poverty.

But he added, "I think we have to approach these things will some humility. There's not Internet and data connections out there. I think we have to hold ourselves to some really tough metrics to see if we're making a difference or not."

Advocates of mHealth say cell phones and other mobile devices, historically banned in exam rooms, have the potential to improve the medical system by allowing doctors, insurance providers, public health officials and patients -- including low-income individuals -- to quickly and cheaply coordinate care.

Gates said he's also concerned that the tight economic climate will discourage the United States from funding foreign aid. "I hope that it doesn't get cut here in the U.S., but I'm quite concerned that it will be," he said. "There's not that much room to fund new things," other than remedies, such as vaccines, that have a direct impact on public health.

One of the "new things" Gates' foundation is backing is mobile-enabled banking, where transactions are completed securely over the phone. "That's a huge thing," he said. "Today, government payment systems often go through the village head and then never go to the intended recipient."

Gates cited Kenya's M-Pesa service, which allows Kenyans to pay taxi fares and other fees via cell phones. In June, his foundation announced a $10 million incentive fund to support mobile money services in Haiti.

Advances in robotics will greatly enhance health care delivery over the next decade, Gates said.

The computer is "learning to see, it's learning to talk, it's learning to listen . . . and it's learning to move around," he said, predicting that ambulatory machines would be relatively cheap in about five years. "The dexterity things are maybe five years behind."

While humans are effective at helping elderly people dress and use the restroom, "that's a hard problem for a robot. The nice thing is that once a robot can do it, then it doesn't forget how to do it and can do it 24 hours a day," Gates said.

Aneesh Chopra, the first-ever federal chief technology officer, spoke at the conference later in the day and said the Obama administration's role in mHealth is that of "government as convener." He challenged the mobile health industry to invent tools that can be mass-produced through federal incentives and standards.

For example, Chopra said government-certified mHealth modules can qualify for reimbursement under a $20 billion federal incentive program that pays doctors to buy certified digital patient records services. Chopra has a background in health care delivery, having served as managing director of the Advisory Board Company, a health think tank founded by David Bradley, the owner of Nextgov's parent company, Atlantic Media.