Mobile health is changing health care delivery worldwide. Now, emerging cellphone-based diagnostic tests are altering the future for how laboratory testing will be conducted, particularly in remote areas. Cellphones are proving capable of imaging, sensing, processing, and communicating health-related data nearly instantaneously in field settings. It is estimated that there are more than 5 billion cellphone users globally and that 80 percent of the world’s population lives within range of a cellphone tower. In many underserved areas the wireless telecommunications infrastructure exceeds the reach of the health care infrastructure. This wireless infrastructure combined with cameras and digital components embedded in smartphones and cloud-based computing marks a powerful new front to fight global disease and helps bridge the gaps in access to health care. Applications for the cellphone-based diagnostic technology are near limitless with validation efforts already progressing for technologies using smartphones for digital microscopy and enabling rapid, qualitative immunoassay screening for infectious diseases, water quality, and food safety even in resource-limited settings. Experts say that products linking in vitro diagnostics products to cellular technology may be a crucial component in how the clinical diagnostics industry penetrates emerging markets in developing nations and will further propel the migration of clinical lab […]