Morristown High School senior Catherine Wong has managed to make the world smaller—and healthier. The winner of National Public Radio’s What’s Your Big Idea? contest for young scientists, Wong created a cell-phone electrocardiogram, or EKG, to improve diagnostic care for people in developing countries.
“My goal was to use the technology that is already widely prevalent to get medical care people need directly to them,” she says. In some developing countries, Wong adds, people have more access to cell phones than to toilets—and little access to health care.
The contest called for a two-minute video about the idea, but Wong made a working prototype using a cell phone donated by Motorola, along with parts from the Morristown High School science department and purchases from Radio Shack.
An EKG is a basic tool for diagnosing heart disorders. When the heart beats, it produces electrical impulses that Wong’s model can send via any Bluetooth-enabled cell phone to the cell phone of any physician who can receive a picture message.
NPR science correspondent Joe Palca, who organized the contest, says it was meant to challenge young minds and highlight the importance of helping others. “Catherine was very committed to that notion,” he says. Other mobile EKGs do exist, he adds, but Wong’s model is smaller and cheaper to make.
“I want to work in a career where the focus is on medical care or building things,” Wong says. “But always with the goal of bringing it to the other 90 percent.”