Astronauts at the International Space Station are dependent upon telemedicine for all kinds of illness. However, according to Dr. Shannan Moynihan, the deputy chief of space and occupational medicine from the NASA Johnson Space Centre, although effective, telemedicine has its limits.

Dr. Shannan Moynihan said in a presentation at HIMSS18, “As we get further away from our home here on earth, we’re talking about an increased delay in the communications we already have; ... For example, if we’re talking about Mars, it’s 18 to 20 minutes one way for an audio signal to get there. That really takes telemedicine for an acute issue out of commission. We need to start thinking outside the box and thinking differently. We need our crews to be more autonomous. There needs to be more capability onboard, both technology and training."

Recently NASA took steps towards solving the problem since the Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH) who filed a contract with NASA, awarded a grant for digital health startup, VisualDx, for designing a diagnostic tool specifically for astronauts.

Dr. Art Papier, the CEO and Cofounder of VisualDx's said, "A lot of people think VisualDx is all about rashes or eye problems [where you can diagnose from] a photo, but VisualDx covers any symptom or differential diagnosis across medicine; And that’s why NASA was looking at it. They weren’t just looking for rashes in space, they were looking at diagnoses across medicine."

VisualDx provides clinical decision support tools and treatment guidance tools via the Skinsight website, and a soon-to-launch app named Aysa. Papier stated that he believes the tool would be able to diagnose as many as 89 percent of the conditions applicable to the astronauts.