2011 Invention Award - The Picture of Health
The Idea : A no-touch system measuring vital signs
Name : Medical Mirror
Inventor : Ming-Zher Poh
Time : 1-1/2 Years
ONE NIGHT in late 2009, Ming-Zher Poh and his roommate, Dan McDuff, asked some friends to sit in front of a laptop. Poh, an electrical-and medical-engineering graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was trying to transform the computer's webcam into a heart-rate monitor. He hoped that his software would allow doctors to check the vital signs of burn victims or babies without attaching uncomfortable clips, and that it would make it easier for adults to track their cardiovascular health over time. That night, the program wasn't working in real time, but its measurements were near-perfect. "Right away I knew we had something special," Poh says.
