I came across this really cool mobile health tool matrix by BJ Fogg. Here it is embedded below:
I think this is an interesting way to look at mobile health tools. Although, the most powerful part of this matrix is it shows the breadth of mobile health tools. The possibilities are nearly endless. In fact, it makes it a challenge to cover because the idea of mobile health is so broad.
John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit.
The always vocal Jonathan Bush has a great article in Techonomy that talks about why many venture capitalists (VCs) have stayed away from healthcare IT investments. He provides a lot of food for thought for entrepreneurs looking at health IT.
Here’s the 3 reasons he gives for investor insecurity with healthcare IT investments:
1. Healthcare consumers don’t shop
2. The biggest buyer stifles innovations
3. Service, quality and competitive pricing aren’t rewarded.
Here are his 3 solutions:
1. Do good and do well
2. Get noticed
3. Serve the market that has a lot of buyers!
I really like his 3 challenges. I’m not sure his solutions are enough, but I’m glad he’s really cranking up the conversation on what it takes to be an entrepreneur in healthcare IT.
John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit.
Today it was announced that Jawbone has acquired BodyMedia. Here’s an excerpt on the acquisition and announcement from pandydaily.
Today Jawbone, the company that makes the wearable “quantified self” band UP, issued two announcements: it’s rolling out an API so the device can integrate with other apps and connected devices relating to health and wellness. It’s also acquiring BodyMedia, which makes an FDA-approved weight-loss device called FIT that’s been used on the TV show “The Biggest Loser.”
…
The BodyMedia acquisition is a talent and intellectual property grab – it has 87 patents in its IP portfolio – but it will retain its name, continue producing the FIT, and keep its office in Pittsburgh open. The company would not disclose any other terms of the sale. The acquisition is a smart move in building out the product’s abilities in the future. BodyMedia has a medical bent, so surely future iterations of UP will pay more attention to things like disease monitoring.But the really intriguing news is the API. It will allow partner apps to be able to tap into a user’s Jawbone data so she can find out more about her health and wellness habits. For example, a user can log onto MapMyFitness and view workout data in UP. Or he can step on a Withing scale – another connected device – and import his weight into up and see it in the context of sleeping and eating habits.
I think the article is right that the biggest asset that Jawbone is acquiring is the patent portfolio of BodyMedia. The other hard part is that I think the BodyMedia brand is better known than the Jawbone brand. So, the company will have a tough decision in how to go forward. It will take some time for them to work through the existing inventories and merge the product lines. It will be fun to watch.
I find the Jawbone API a little disappointing since it’s just a partner API. I know they say their intent is to eventually open up the Jawbone data to anyone, but I don’t understand why they wouldn’t do this from the start.
John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit.
One of the really interesting people I met at TEDMED was Amy Robinson. She’s from MIT and is working on some of the coolest brain technology out there. I’d first seen something similar to their work at CES where they had you control a helicopter with your brain. It’s pretty insane technology. At TEDMED they did a similar thing where you’d control a Xerox cube with your brain.
Amy also taught be about their game to map the brain called EyeWire. It’s been around for ~5 months and already has 60,000 players from 130 countries mapping neurons in 3D to decipher information processing networks in the brain. More simply put, they have 60,000 people playing games to benefit science.
It’s such a beautiful concept. I logged in and started doing some of the mapping. It’s really simple to get started, but I can see how you’re going to have to be pretty creative and detail oriented to be successful at the game. Plus, it’s cool to think that you’re contributing in even a small way to future scientific discovery.
I’ve long loved the idea of crowdsourcing and I’m really glad to see it being applied to science and healthcare. It’s amazing what a crowd of people each contributing a little bit can create.
John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit.
I thought it would be fun to take a moment and look at the various website statics for Smart Phone Health Care. It’s amazing how far this website has come since I created the first post back on January 24, 2011. I think we’ve generally held true to that vision of covering many of the latest smart phone apps and technology. We plan to continue doing so into the future.
I hope that as we continue to grow the site that we’ll be able to cover more of the healthcare medical devices as well. No doubt there’s a merging of the smart phone and medical device communities. In fact, many would happily call your smart phone a medical device. In some ways, they’re right (Just don’t tell the FDA I said so).
Now for some of the numbers, we’ve created 298 blog posts and had 270 comments approved. I’d like to get the comment number up, but it’s still nice to see that we have more engagement than many blogs. Getting comments can be a hard challenge. As of right now, we’ve had 116,729 pageviews.
I also wanted to say a big thank you to the advertisers that have supported Smart Phone Healthcare. Canon and Amazing Charts are both advertising on the site and their support is much appreciated. If you’re looking for a scanner, check out what Canon has available. If you’re looking for an EMR, you should definitely take the time to check out Amazing Charts. They’ve had an iPhone EMR app since 2011.
Finally, a big thanks to David and Katie who have written a lot of the content you’ll find on Smart Phone Healthcare. They’ve both done an excellent job. I look forward to the next 300 posts.
John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit.
One of the big announcements going into TEDMED was the idea of a Smart Phone Physical. It was such an intriguing proposition that Katie wrote about it here and Anne wrote about it here. Maybe that means we should coordinate content more, but in some ways I think it’s interesting to see what topics my writers find worthy to write about. The fact that they both independently wrote about the concept says something important.
I think the core message is clear: we all would love a smart phone physical. I think this is underscored by the opposing idea that we all hate going to the doctor. It’s not about the doctor in particular, I love the doctors I’ve seen. There’s just nothing beautiful about the experience of going to the doctor. Those visits are plagued by long wait times, added expense, uncomfortable situations, and often poor customer service.
I realize there are exceptions to the above, but this is the stigma of a visit to the doctor. Some of this can be solved by rethinking the physician visit (something some doctors have really done well) and some of it is just inherent with the nature of a medical visit. The later is difficult to change. The former is likely why the smart phone physical is so intriguing from a patient perspective. It flips the experience on the head and in many ways takes out the unpleasant parts of a visit to the doctor.
Although, the following tweet illustrates that just doing the physical on the smart phone won’t solve all the issues:
My favorite #TEDMED delegate comment might have been, “I went to get a smartphone exam and they said I needed to have an appointment.”
— EMR, EHR and HIT(@ehrandhit) April 21, 2013
Just because the visit is electronic doesn’t mean that they can’t still have long wait times, added expense, and poor customer service, but I still love the idea of my kids terrorizing my house instead of the waiting room.
John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit.
There’s a revolution in health sensors that are coming to the smartphone world. This was first seen when the Samsung phones decided to include sensors to measure the temperature and humidity of your location.
It looks like Fujitsu is ready to launch a new smartphone that measures your vital health information using you smartphone camera. Here’s an excerpt from the article:
[Fujitsu] have just announced plan to begin including health tracking technology into their future smartphones. This tech would be able to figure out your heart rate just by looking at your face. Basically, you stick your mug in front of the camera and the phone does the rest. How in the world does it do this? Subtle changes in facial blood flow are not detectable by the human eye but are able to be seen by computers. Lo and behold, smartphones are actually computers.
I first saw this technology in action at the Connected Health Summit in Boston a couple years ago. It’s really amazing monitoring technology using just your smartphone camera. It’s a beautiful thing since you don’t need a wristband, armband, clip on, etc. You just need the smartphone that you’re carrying around already.
I wonder if this monitoring technology is just an app that can work with almost any hardware or if it will need a specific camera to work right. It would be great if it’s just an app, because then this could work for any smartphone.
John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit.
The people at Pathfinder Software have put together an infographic on Health Tracking. The data for their infographic comes from a Pew Research Study. It highlights something I’ve discussed much before as far as those with chronic conditions tracking their health versus healthy patients. There’s a big difference in those two groups. I was also intrigued by the data sharing numbers. I’d like to know the exact question asked, but those patients with no conditions shared a lot more than I thought they would with their doctor.
Here’s the infographic:
John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the various form factors that are being used by consumer medical device companies lately. I think this interest was sparked when I heard a couple of the following statements:
“We’re about to enter a real battle for the wrist.”
“One of the keys to broad adoption is to build a product on top of an existing habit.”
The first statement really highlights the number of wrist based monitoring devices that are on the market. I agree that there’s going to be a real battle for the wrist. Interestingly enough, the second statement highlights why there’s going to be a real battle for the wrist. Many people are use to having a watch on their wrist. So, a product that is on the wrist is building on people’s habit of wearing a wrist watch.
What are your thoughts on the various form factors that are being used for medical devices:
-Wrist Bands
-Chest Straps
-Pant Clips
-Shoe Clips
-Arm Straps
-Head Straps
-Hand Held
-Pocket Stored
-Full Shirt
-Full Shorts
Are there any other form factors I’m missing? I’d love to start a real deep discussion on the various form factors and the pros and cons of each.
John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit.
Fierce Mobile Healthcare has a great article up talking about Google entering the activity tracking market with an Android app called Google Now. Turns out that Google Now is a lot more than just a fitness activity tracker. I think that Google looks at Google Now as the smart part of your phone that keeps track of what you’re doing and tries to provide real time information based upon all the data about you. It’s the next level Siri if you want to think about it that way. So, it makes sense that Google Now would also try and understand your health in the process.
While it’s interesting to see Google get back into the Health game after the failure of Google Health to get any traction, I think this is a really smart move. Plus, why isn’t the smartphone your activity tracking device? I know very few people who leave their house without their smartphone, but I know very few people who want to wear any other device all day every day.
Sure, your smartphone won’t track your activity level perfectly, but it can get pretty close. The battery won’t last as long as the other activity trackers along with other issues. However, when you look a the core technology in the fitness trackers and your smartphone, they are pretty close. I’ll reach out to some of my mHealth device friends to get their thoughts on the difference. Maybe there are a number of other issues I’m not thinking about.
We’ll see how this evolves, but the more we can make mHealth activity tracking a normal part of people’s routine, the more likely we’ll see results from it.
John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit.
