Medical tricorder

Its data banks also contain information on non-human races known to the Federation, thereby making it possible to treat other life-forms.Several reports suggest that there may be opposition to the development of such a device by national medical regulating authorities such as the Food and Drug Administration in the United States, as well as possible opposition by doctors unwilling to permit consumers to do extensive self-diagnosis which might result in inappropriate self-medication.

[10] According to the prize guidelines, the device should diagnose 15 different medical conditions, including a sore throat to sleep apnea to colon cancer.

[8] Numerous accounts speculate that the advent of high-power computer chips, cell-phone technology, and improved scanners means that such a device will likely be invented in the next few years.

[3] Medical tricorders may work by sensing "volatile organic compounds our bodies secrete" by some means of smell.

[5] A second report confirms that sensitive electronic "noses" may detect infections such as pneumonia from a person's exhaled breaths.

[12] Some existing smartphones have been used as medical devices in the sense that text reminders have been sent to a patient about prescription renewals, and downloadable apps allow cameras in cell phones to act as sensors to track heart and breathing rates.

[3] One neurologist uses iPhone smartphone apps entitled Liftpulse and iSeismograph to diagnose and measure tremors in patients with Parkinson's disease.

A hockey puck-shaped object that can apparently measure your temperature, heart rate, oximetry (blood oxygenation), run an electrocardiogram, gauge heart rate variability, clock pulse wave transit time (related to blood pressure), perform a urine analysis and calculate a metric Scanadu refers to (vaguely) as "stress."

Smartphones may be used as medical tricorders; smartphone software and camera detect pulse from a fingertip using a technique similar to that of a pulse oximeters .
The TV show Star Trek had a fictional Dr. McCoy who used a device called a tricorder to examine patients in an instant. The fictional device has spawned a search for its real-life equivalent.
The conception of a medical tricorder will be a general purpose scanner with many functions, including that of measuring temperatures like these digital thermometers.
A handheld single-function electronic device to measure glucose levels of diabetics. Performing this and other tests would be one of the many functions of a medical tricorder.