Katie

“Instagram” for Heart Attacks Could Save Lives

What do you think of when you think about Instagram? Probably not a life-saving device, right? Turns out, the popular social media platform is the inspiration for ECG Capture, an iPhone app that is being lauded as the “Instagram for Heart Attacks.”

Students and faculty from the University of Virginia created an Instagram-like app for the iPhone to assist in helping heart attack victims get treatment quicker. With the app, the user taks a photo of the ECG and sends the image, via a cell phone network, to a secure server at a hospital. At the hospital the heart attack victim is being sent to, physicians are able to see the ECG before they arrive and determine the best course of action.

It appears to work faster than the traditional way of sending ECGs. In more than 1,500 tests, it was found to transmit images in less than 6 seconds — the traditional method took up to 114 seconds to send. These few seconds difference could change, and possibly save, a person’s life.

This sounds like a great way to increase efficiency. Obviously, there’s always the concern of being in an area where there’s no cell service, or something else malfunctioning, but it seems like a pretty reliable method so far, after the 1,500 tests that were conducted. It’s nice to see that people are taking note of successful social media, and finding a way to adapt it toward health care.

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May 22, 2013 I Written By Katie

Katie Clark is originally from Colorado and currently lives in Utah with her husband and son. She writes primarily for Smart Phone Health Care, but contributes to several Health Care Scene blogs, including EMR Thoughts, EMR and EHR, and EMR and HIPAA. She enjoys learning about Health IT and mHealth, and finding ways to improve her own health along the way.

Tags:Healthcare Social Media Heart Attacks Instagram Instagram for Heart Attacks mHealth Mobile Health Care

Google Glasses: The Future of Healthcare?

I’ll admit, I’m kind of a fan girl for all things Google (if you didn’t notice with my recent excitement about Google Fiber, or how I tend to favor Android apps.) So, of course, I think that Google Glasses sound really exciting. And when I first heard about them, I wondered if they had a place in healthcare.

It looks like others have thought that same thing.

To me, it would make sense for Google Glasses to be used in the healthcare world. It could be the next step for fitness devices. Doctors could potentially use it, as could medical students. The article from above listed the following ideas that seemed most plausible (these descriptions are directly from the article):

Video sharing and storage: Physicians could record medical visits and store them for future reference or share the footage with other doctors.
A diagnostic reference: If Glass is integrated with an electronic medical record (EMR), it could provide a real-time feed of the patient’s vital signs.
A textbook alternative: Rather than referring to a medical textbook, physicians can perform a search on the fly with their Google Glass.
Emergency room/war zone care: As storied venture capitalist Marc Andreessen proposed in a recent interview, consider ”dealing with wounded patients and right there in their field of vision, if they’re trying to do any kind of procedure, they’ll have step-by-step instructions walking them through it.” In a trauma situation, doctors need to keep their hands free.
Helping medical students learn: As suggested by one blogger, a surgeon might live stream a live — and potentially rare — surgery to residents and students.
Preventing medical errors: With an electronic medical record integration, a nurse can scan the medication to confirm whether it’s the correct drug dose and right patient.

It seems as if this is only the beginning. Of course, Google Glasses aren’t going to come cheap, but I feel it could really revolutionize healthcare.

What possibilities do you see between Google Glasses and Healthcare?

11 Great iPhone Apps for Nurses — According to Apple

It seems like every day, I read another article about nurses using tablets and smartphones in the workplace. I was just thinking the other day that I should do a round-up of great apps for nurses, but it looks like Apple beat me to it. This list was compiled by Apple last year, and they are their top 11 iPhone apps for nurses. While I still plan to make a list of apps for both the iPhone and Android devices that nurses can use, I thought I’d share these apps as well.

Most of these apps are free (though they may involve a paid subscription), though some cost less than $10. After reading about them, I can definitely see how they could be helpful. So, nursing friends, if you have an iPhone or an iPad that you use at work — these might be something you want to look into. Here’s a brief description, and cost, of each app that made Apple’s top apps for nurses list:

1. Voalte One: Before you get too attached to this one, your hospital must be equipped with the Voalté Server. And if it is, then great! Because this app allows for phone calls through a hospital’s VoIP system, secure text messaging using a user directory, and alarm management. Medical professionals are able to receive alarms, and respond quickly, which helps with overall workflow.

Cost: Free

2. Nursing Central: This is a comprehensive database designed to help nurses find answers to just about any question they might have.There is detail information on diseases, tests, drugs, and more, and a medical dictionary with more than 60,000 entries.

Cost: Free

3. NurseTabs: Fundamentals: There are a couple of NurseTabs apps, which are specifically designed for new nurses. This one covers the basic skills and procedures nurses need to know. After selecting a specific procedure, the nurse will be given step-by-step information, including what kind of equipment should be used.

Cost: 9.99

4. PatientTouch: This app was created to help improve workflow, and help nurses spend more time with their patients. It assists in specimen collection, infant care, communications, and more. PatientTouch is completely HIPAA compliant, and hopefully will help increase quality of care, while decrease costs.

Cost: Free

5. Medigram: Medigram is a simple way to securely send messages containing medical information. This makes it possible to collaborate with other medical professionals in a secure and quick manner.

Cost: Free

6. NurseTabs: Medsurge: Another app by NurseTabs that was created specifically for new nurses, or nursing students. It contains over 300 diseases and disorders, organized in an easily searchable way. After selecting a certain ailment, the user can access tons of information about it, including a nursing process approach on how to handle the situation. It’s also a great place to review for the NCLEX exam.

Cost: 9.99

7. Lab Values Reference: If you are working with lab results a lot, this could be very helpful. I actually might download this myself (access to my lab results immediately makes me constantly look things up until I hear from my doctor.) It has coverage of the 375 most commonly performed lab results, which includes the normal ranges or findings, results, explanations of abnormalities, and more.

Cost: .99

8. NCSBN Learning Extension Medication Flashcards: Stressing out about the NCLEX? No need to worry anymore. This app is a great resource for memorizing drug information, as you can sort cards into different categories, learn interesting facts, and more.

Cost: Free

9. The Merck Manuals for Mobile + Web: Merck Manuals are one of the most widely used and accepted medical reference guides. And now, you can have it at your fingertips. The app is free, but you have to pay for the subscription. There are three different manuals that can be downloaded — the 19th edition for mobile and web, patient symptoms guide, and Davis’ drug guide.

Cost: Free

10. Shots by STFM: Does anyone like getting shots? I sure don’t think so. And I imagine nurses don’t get any joy out of administering them. This app helps making the process a little easier when trying to determine the correct dosages, especially for unique situations. It contains the CDC recommended course for vaccines, information on ingredients, side effects, and more.

Cost: Free

11. Lexicomp: Lexicomp is a great resource with trusted information about drug and clinical information. There are quite a few databases available with information, pictures, videos, and more. These can be accessed with or without a data/WiFi connection.

Cost: Free to download, but you will need a subscription to Lexicomp as well

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May 13, 2013 I Written By Katie

Filed Under: Apple Health Care iPad iPhone Medical Devices mHealth Mobile Health Care Social Networking Health

Tags:iPhone iPhone Apps For Nurses mHealth Nurses Top Mobile Apps

Stay Hydrated With The Jomi Band

Drinking water can be the solution to a lot of health problems — it aids in weight loss, it helps the major organs of the body function better, and well, it’s just not good to be dehydrated! But many people, myself included, don’t drink enough water on a regular basis! I know for me personally, I just get so distracted throughout the day, it doesn’t even dawn on me that I didn’t drink water until 6 PM hits, and I’m totally out of it. At that point, my husband asks if I drank anything, and as I think about it…I realize I didn’t! Sometimes I think it would be nice to have a reminder.

If you follow CNN on Facebook, you may have recently read this article. It talks about an Estonian start-up called Jomi Interactive. Several of their prototypes were released last week, and one of the most interesting is the Jomi Band and Sleeve. It’s basically a device that you can attach to your water bottle, and it tracks how much you drink. If it feels that you haven’t had enough fluids, it will let you know with flashing LED lights. The device will be created to link up to a mobile device, if that’s appealing to you for some reason.

There’s another product already on the market called Hydracoach. It’s a water bottle that has the tracking device built in. So the only main difference I can find is that the Jomi Band can be used on multiple water bottles.

It seems like an interesting idea, especially for anyone who isn’t particularly good at keeping track of how much (or little) they drink. It may seem like an easy thing to do, but when sometimes…life gets busy. This could be very helpful for anyone that needs, or even just wants, to make sure they are drinking enough water. Granted, if the bottle is filled with something other than water, it may not be as helpful.

The Jomi Band is only in the developmental stages, but if you want to be informed of it making it’s big debut, go sign up over here. If it’s not too expensive, I might just get one myself.

Utah Hospital Helps Parents of Babies in NICUs Be More Involved

Right after I posted about the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center using FaceTime to connect moms to their babies in the NICU, I saw this article about an Intermountain hospital in Utah doing something similar.

Utah Valley Regional Medical Center, a hospital in Provo, Utah, has equipped all of the NICU beds with three cameras. These will give parents 24 hour access to a live video of their baby.

This hit home because, well, I live right across from the hospital this article talks about, and my son spent eight days there when he was just two weeks old. While we were allowed to be in his room with him the entire time, if he’d been in the NICU, this would have been wonderful to have. And, if we stay in Utah, and we had a baby who had to stay in the NICU, we may benefit from this. This is part of the redesign of the NICU department at UVRMC.

Stephen Minton, MD, is overseeing this project. He is a neonatologist at Intermountain Healthcare, and in an interview he emphasized the importance of communication with parents who have infants in the NICU. He has been at this particular NICU unit since 1979, cared for 26,000 babies, and in all that time never had a lawsuit filed against him. He said that this is not because he didn’t make mistakes, but because of how he interacts with the parents:

It’s really unusual in critical care medicine to go quite that long [without a lawsuit.] The reason is because I communicate with parents, and so they understand what you’re really trying to do. That’s really all what people want. They want to be involved, and they want to feel like they have a voice and that you care.

Minton believes that implementing these cameras will allow the parents to be involved even more, and have a better understanding of the care their infant is receiving. They can see what is being done at all times, and communicate with the attending physician.

UVRMC isn’t the first hospital to implement this type of technology, but it is definitely one of the first. I hope to see more hospitals doing something like this in the future, and perhaps extend it to other areas in the hospital.

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May 6, 2013 I Written By Katie

Filed Under: Health Care Medical Devices mHealth Mobile Health Care

Tags:FaceTime Intermountain Intermountain Healthcare mHealth NICU Stephen Minton

Walgreens Starts Steps with Balance® Rewards

Walgreens has been rather savvy when it comes to mHealth. They have a great mobile app and website to help manage prescriptions as well as find answers to health questions. It was no surprise to me when I heard about their Steps with Balance Rewards program.

If you are familiar with Walk with Walgreens, Steps with Balance^® Rewards replace that program. Basically, you get rewards for doing simple exercise and health “tasks” throughout the day. By walking, running, or tracking weight management, you earn points that can be redeemed for products and other rewards at Walgreens.

There are a few popular devices that can be associated with your Steps with Balance account — BodyMedia, FitBit, and Withings. This makes it easier to earn rewards and track your progress.

I’m not sure if this is something I’ll sign up for, just because I feel like I have so many other programs I’m involved in, but it seems cool. It sounds like a good way to track your progress toward certain goals, and earn rewards while you are at it. It has the typical features of a health tracking program – you can connect with others, set personalized goals, and see your progress. It looks like it has been pretty successful so far, as there have been close to 10 million miles logged and around 600 thousand users. So if you shop at Walgreens a lot, and you are wanting to be rewarded for living a healthy life, this may be the program for you!

If you want to sign up, it’s free! Just head over here and get started today (and yes, it’s free)

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May 3, 2013 I Written By Katie

Filed Under: Health Care mHealth Patient Home Monitoring Social Networking Health

Tags:Healthy Living mHealth Steps With Balance Rewards Walgreens Weight Loss

Smartphone Usage Among Physicians Rises in 2012

There is often debate about the use of smartphones in the doctor’s office, but there’s no doubt that usage is on the rise. And according to the Kantar Media Sources & Interaction Study, the percentage of physicians using a smartphone for a professional purpose has risen nine percent in the past year. Here is a little comparison chart showing usage over the past three years (I apologize for how small it is).

As you can see, the study found that 74% (almost three-quarters!) of physicians are using smartphones for professional reasons. Of that 74%, 62% said they use smartphone apps for work. In addition, 52% said they use diagnostic tools and clinical reference apps and 46% use apps that help with drug and coding references. The study also found that almost 40 percent of the physicians studied use both a smartphone and a tablet. Here are a few other interesting facts found in the study:

43% use smartphones for referencing drug data
39% find or perform clinical calculations (which jumped 35% from 2011)
31% of doctors make decisions for prescriptions using a smartphone.

I’m sure I don’t need to convince most of you about the benefits of a physician not just being willing, but also knowing how, to use smartphones and tablets in their practice. I think it’s exciting to see that more and more are getting on board. A few months ago when I was visiting with a doctor, I had a question about whether or not I could take a certain medication while nursing my son. He pulled out a drug interactions book, and for about 10 minutes, tried to figure out whether or not it was okay, and ultimately told me he had no idea. When I got home, I was able to find the information I needed in less than 10 seconds.

I also wonder if we will see more patients bringing a tablet or smartphone to their appointment. On another occasion when I was at the doctor, the physician I was seeing told me she never received the records from my other doctor. I wished that I had brought my tablet, where I could have easily pulled up all my test results right there (which I did do a few weeks later, which the doctor thought was really cool.) Doing this could definitely help bridge the gap that sometimes appears when you have to rely on doctor’s offices sending records via fax.

While using a smartphone or tablet in the office does raise concerns about patient engagement, I think it is an overall positive situation seeing more and more physicians using smartphones. Now we just have to get everyone on board with the smartphone physical.

What Google Fiber Could Mean For the Future of Healthcare

Have you heard of Google Fiber? If you haven’t, don’t worry. You most likely don’t have it in your city yet. I only heard about it last week, with the announcement that Provo, Utah (where I live) would be getting it.

After reading more about it, both my husband and I were so excited…so much so, that we’ve considered extending our time in Provo a little bit longer. But I also starting thinking about how Google Fiber could help transform healthcare. From what I understand, hospitals and schools in the cities where Google Fiber is implemented will have access to Internet that has a speed of 1 GB, which, to put it simply, is crazy fast.

Having experienced the speed (or lack thereof) of the Internet at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center here in Provo, I was just thrilled to hear they would be able to have faster Internet. After talking with a nurse at my son’s doctor’s appointment today, whose office is on the campus of UVRMC and will likely get the 1 GB of high speed Internet, I could tell that the hospital was very excited about this announcement. This made me start to wonder about what effect Google Fiber might have on Healthcare, so I did some Googling to see what others had to say about it.

Google Fiber has been announced in two other cities — Austin, Texas, and Kansas City, Kansas. There was a panel discussion just a few days ago, put on by Austin Health Tech, discussing what Google Fiber could mean for Austin’s healthcare technology scene. I haven’t been able to track down what was discussed, but I’m sure it would be interesting. I did, however, read this article about Google Fiber and the possibility of High Speed Health. Apparently, Kansas University Medical Center has already developed three pilot programs that will be using Google Fiber’s network in the community. These programs include:

Virtual care of teens in their homes
Support for caregivers of people with dementia
Consulting and training at risk families through Project Eagle

Barbara Atkinson, Dean of KU’s School of Medicine, was a facilitator at a meeting discussing the possibilites of Google Fiber and healthcare last year. She said,

We’ve done some thinking about how much patient care could be done from hospital to home. Things like managing some chronic diseases — heart failure or something like that — if you have real high-definition teleconferencing and really good, simple machines that could be in people’s homes, you could manage many things. You really could cut health care costs by doing it that way, rather than having readmissions for [things like] health failure.

Reading this made me wonder if Google Fiber might make it even more possible for the smartphone physical that was demonstrated at TEDMED to become a standard practice. Even for those in the cities that have Google Fiber that don’t want to pay the monthly fee for the 1 GB of high-speed Internet will have free access to up to 5 MB of speed. People will have more access to the Internet than they have ever had before.

The article also quotes Dr. Sharon Lee, head of Southwest Boulevard Family Health Care, as saying that Google Fiber “holds promise for improving the level of care at her primary care clinic.” She believes that having the extremely high speed network available to her will give her “access to a quick way to communicate with other providers,” in ways like uploading and sending x-rays quickly from her clinic over to other specialists, which would allow for real-time evaluations.

Another article talked about a brainstorming session that took place last year in Kansas City, where it was suggested that children on home ventilators, elderly patients or others who cannot travel easily would be able to be seen via remotely because of the high-speed Internet connection. This bounces off the same ideas that Barbara Atkinson discussed as well.

It’s fun to think about the implications Google Fiber could have on mHealth. I could see more doctors wanting to use tablets and smartphones in their offices, especially if they know they will have a reliable (and fast) Internet connection. What effect do you think Google Fiber could have on the future of healthcare?

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May 1, 2013 I Written By Katie

Filed Under: Health Care mHealth Mobile Health Care

Tags:Future of Healthcare Google Fiber Healthcare High Speed Health mHealth

Lose Weight and Win Money With DietBet

After I posted about the study that found financial incentives to be a good motivator for weight loss, I have been on the lookout for more websites popping up like Gym Pact. I was curious to see how much something like this would motivate me, and since I no longer belong to a gym, Gym Pact was out of the question. Well, today a friend of my sent me an invitation to a website called DietBet, and I was immediately intrigued.

DietBet is a 4-week program, where participants need to lose 4% of their body weight (or more) in order to get any of the “pot.” You can create your own challenge, or join someone else’s, and pay a certain sum of money to participate. For instance, the one I joined was $25. And let me tell you, I’m more motivated than ever before to lose weight, even just to get back my $25.

Whenever a new person enters your group, the pot rises. I was looking at the top game, and it’s at almost $9,000. I wouldn’t mind being part of that group! When the date arrives for the contest to begin, you have to take two photos – one full length photo of you on a scale in “airport security” attire, and one of the scale, the number on it, and a piece of paper with a weigh-in word, to prove it’s actually you. I was wondering how they would do this, actually, and it seems like they’ve got it under control! These photos are kept private, and you don’t have to share your weight with the others in the competition.

During the competition, you can post photos, write comments, and just interact with others in the game. There is also an iPhone app companion for the game, which I thought was nice. Starting on the last day of the competition, you have 48 hours to “weigh out”

I really believe that money is a great motivator for just about anything, and I’m interested to see if I actually have any success using this site. (PS, if you want to join in, my group starts on April 29th. The more the merrier!)

BabyTime Connects Moms to Babies in NICU

Nothing pulls at my heart strings more than stories of babies in the NICU. And this story did just that.

At Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, mothers who aren’t able to see their babies who were whisked away to the NICU can now see them a little bit sooner. The hospital is using FaceTime, the free, video chat app that iPads, iPhones, and iPod touches have, to connect new moms to their sweet little ones. A lot of the time, these mother’s aren’t able to go and be with their baby’s in the NICU for awhile, or even the baby is sick enough, they have to be held in isolation. On the flipside, sometimes a mother may be too weak or ill after delivery to be with her baby. Using this simple app helps make this hard situation a little easier.

The hospital calls this “BabyTime,” and it has been used with a small group of moms who delivered via C-section, though they have plans to have mothers who had a traditional delivery. In the article, Yvonne Kidder, a nurse at Cedars-Sinai, said that sometimes it can take between 2 and 3 days before a mom can see her baby, and that they want to “cut that down to 2-3 hours.” The hospital now has guidelines that allow for new moms to have access to BabyTime at least once time during a nursing shift, which lasts 12 hours.

My son was healthy when he was born, and I was able to see him about 10 minutes after birth. I can’t even imagine how hard it would be to have had him taken away to the NICU, and not been able to see him for who knows how long. I think it’s wonderful that this hospital is seeing the benefit of using technology to connect moms with their NICU babies, and I hope other hospitals will follow suit. Babies can recognize their mother’s voice right out of the womb, and I imagine that hearing the voice of their mother while in a vulnerable state has got to help in some way!

Another thing I love about this is that it shows that mHealth doesn’t have to be complicated. Sure, there is a lot of mHealth apps and technology out there, and some of it is not-so-user friendly. But I love seeing existing mobile technology, that most know how to use, being used in new and innovative ways.