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Review
. 2023 Feb;15(681):eabk3489.
doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.abk3489. Epub 2023 Feb 1.

Passive monitoring by smart toilets for precision health

T Jessie Ge  1 , Vasiliki Nataly Rahimzadeh  2 , Kevin Mintz  2 , Walter G Park  3 , Nicole Martinez-Martin  2 , Joseph C Liao  1 , Seung-Min Park  1   4   5
Affiliations
Review

Passive monitoring by smart toilets for precision health

T Jessie Ge et al. Sci Transl Med. 2023 Feb.

Abstract

Smart toilets are a key tool for enabling precision health monitoring in the home, but such passive monitoring has ethical considerations.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: S.-m.P. is a cofounder of Kanaria Inc., a digital health care company. T.J.G. and S.-m.P. are coinventors on an international patent application no. PCT/US2022/050489 titled “Smart toilet devices, systems, and methods for monitoring biomarkers for passive diagnostics and public health,” filed by Stanford University.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.. The smart toilet as a key precision health tool.
Smart toilets and passive monitoring for precision health have the potential to make an impact on health care in the future. Smart toilets for the home are poised to offer quantitative analysis of urine and stool for precision health. Data from excreta collected by the smart toilet can be securely transmitted and stored in the cloud, where analyses for disease risk prediction and early intervention can be performed. There are still a number of engineering, social, and ethical challenges that need to be overcome before smart toilets for precision health become a reality. It is important to prioritize establishing an ethical framework for the use of smart toilets as their development for passive health monitoring continues.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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