Many of these transformations hinge on the insights a phone can give into someone’s life. At the moment, most doctors need to rely on a blinkered view of their patient’s lifestyle, based on face-to-face interviews. Our phones, however, give a warts-and-all account of our behaviour. “The smartphone travels around with us everywhere,” says Deborah Estrin at Cornell University. Estrin co-founded Open mHealth – a non-profit that aims to transform the way that personal and digital data is used in medicine – and will be presenting at BBC Future’s World-Changing Ideas Summit in New York on 21 October. “From it you can know when they are getting out of the house, how ambulatory they are, the speed they are moving through the world. And it’s often the last thing you touch when you go to sleep and first thing you touch when you are awake – so it tells you about sleep patterns.” That’s not to mention simple plug-ins that could measure your blood pressure, blood sugar level or even analyse your urine.

So far, however, few doctors have embraced these possibilities. “The medical cocoon has not allowed a digital invasion,” says Topol, “while the rest of the world has already assimilated the digital revolution into its day-to-day life.” That’s not due to lack of demand: many patients are already monitoring their health through their phone, with apps that check your skin for cancer from a selfie, for example. These programs are not always designed with the accuracy most doctors would require, however – and some fear that by missing a diagnosis and offering a false sense of security, they could cost lives. “The slower the healthcare system is in exploring these things, the more people are at risk by doing the exploration on their own,” says Estrin.