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Smart Phone Health Exam at TEDMED

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:

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.

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April 22, 2013 I Written By

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.

Filed Under: Health Care  Healthcare IT  Medical Devices  mHealth  Mobile Health Care  Smart Phones  Telemedicine
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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.

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April 15, 2013 I Written By

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.

Filed Under: Apple  Health Care  Healthcare IT  iPad  iPhone  Medical Devices  mHealth  Smart Phones
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Fujitsu Smartphone to Measure Vitals

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.

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April 10, 2013 I Written By

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.

Filed Under: Healthcare IT  Medical Devices  mHealth  Mobile Health Care  Smart Phones
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WebMD Introduces New Allergy App

WebMD sure is trying to make a name for themselves in the mHealth world. In addition to the other apps they released last year, they just added another app to that suite. This time, it focuses on allergies.

I think that everyone probably knows someone that has some kind of allergy, or even suffers from one themselves. My husband has seasonal allergies, and my son has several food allergies. While this app is geared more toward people who suffer from allergies themselves, I think just about anyone could benefit from it.

The app features a few different sections, which include:

  • Allergy Forecast: Allergy levels specific for your location that are regularly updated. You can also look up the “allergy forecast” for places you are visiting.
  • Personalized Forecasts and Tips: After indicating which allergies you and/or your family suffer from, the app will give you tips on how to manage those allergies.
  • Allergies 101: This includes WebMD’s library of allergy related resources — articles, photos, and videos. It focuses on seven categories: Outdoor, indoor, skin, drug, food, insect bites and stinks, and latex.
  • Timely Alerts: This helps you plan your days, and know if certain triggers will be worse, according to the allergy forecast.

The part of this app I think makes this one everyone should download is Allergies 101. You never know when you will be around someone when they have an allergic reaction to something, and being able to quickly access information may be important. As a parent, and especially because I have a child with allergies, I feel it’s important to be able to access that information at a moment’s notice. It would be easier to go straight to this app, rather than messing around with Google.

It’s fun to see WebMD coming out with new apps fairly regularly. I’ve mentioned before that I’m a big fan of WebMD, and I love using their apps.

This app can be downloaded for iOS for free here.

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April 3, 2013 I Written By

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.

Filed Under: Apple  Health Care  Healthcare IT  iPad  iPhone  mHealth  Mobile Health Care  Patient Home Monitoring  Smart Phones
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Do-It-Yourself Smartphone Healthcare

We’re on the edge of a major shift to Do-It-Yourself healthcare and many don’t even realize it. Sure, everyone acknowledges that people search for health information on Google and they use some health related apps, but I think that’s just the small part of the iceberg that we can see above the water. Here are some stats on the growing digital health market:

A report by Parks Associates in February estimated that in the United States alone, revenue from digital health technology and services would exceed $5.7 billion in 2015, compared with $1.7 billion in 2010, fueled by devices that monitor chronic conditions like hypertension and diabetes and by wellness and fitness applications and programs. -Source

More and more people are getting interested in their smartphone as a health device. Plus, I don’t think any health app has really hit that sweet spot yet. There are tens of thousands of people working on it, but I don’t think we’ve really had that breakout health app that everyone has to have on their phone. However, it’s coming and soon.

Plus, there are other signs that health applications are going mainstream. Eric Topol’s been making the media rounds for it on both Rock Center with Brian Williams and The Colbert Report.

What’s going to really tip the scales with healthcare on the smartphone? I think the answer is being able to connect with your doctor on your smart phone. Once that connection is possible, reimbursable, etc. then the masses will adopt it and it will open up a myriad of other opportunities for healthcare on a smart phone.

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April 2, 2013 I Written By

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.

Filed Under: Health Care  Healthcare IT  mHealth  Mobile Health Care  Smart Phones
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CVS’s New Mobile App Makes Refilling Prescriptions Easy

CVS has really upped the standards for other pharmacies and drug stores with the recent release of it’s iPad app. Basically, by logging into the app, you see a virtual CVS. While it has a lot of non-medical uses, that are actually pretty cool, there are two parts of the CVS app I want to to feature. First off, I just think this app looks neat. The only time I’ve been in a CVS was when I was in North Carolina last summer First, the pharmacy center. When you pull it up on the app, it looks just like you stepped up to the front desk at a pharmacy. Here are a few of the features of the pharmacy center:

  • Scan your Refill: Just scan the barcode on any prescription, and it will show up in your queue to refill it
  • Manage presciriptions for yourself and your family from the tablet.
  • Use the Rapid Refill feature to refill your common prescriptions
  • You can “grab” your prescriptions that have been saved and quickly refill them

The other health-related features is the MinuteClinic. This basically provides information about the walk-in clinics that are located inside of CVS stores. When you go here in the app,  you can do the following things:

  • Find the nearest clinic and its hours
  • Check out what services are offered and what the costs are
  • Check to see if your insurance is accepted

I’m a very visual person, which is why I like this app. Even though it’s all virtual, and you aren’t actually going up to the counter, it kind of makes it more fun. This is definitely a great app for anyone that really uses the services at CVS on a regular basis. It’s definitely a lot easier to use than some of the websites I’ve seen different pharmacies creating.

The app is free and can be downloaded for the iPad here.

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April 1, 2013 I Written By

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.

Filed Under: Apple  Health Care  iPad  mHealth  Mobile Health Care  Smart Phones
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NetPulse Brings Fitness Apps and Equipment Into One Place

I’ve talked about a lot of different devices that were created to track (and help users meet) fitness and health goals. With all the options, it can get kind of overwhelming!  Especially when you have to transfer the information from your fitness device, to your food and exercise tracker. There’s a new platform that aims to simplify all this data into one place, making it easier to track.

NetPulse is similar to Microsoft’s HealthVault that I recently talked about. Working with several third-party apps, as well as fitness equipment workers, NetPulse brings them all together in one platform and helps them work together to help users reach their ultimate fitness goals.

These companies have fitness equipment assocated with NetPulse:

  • LifeFitness
  • Woodway
  • Matrix
  • Octane
  • TechnoGym
  • True
  • StarTrac

And the 3rd party apps that are working with NetPulse include:

  • MyFitnessPal
  • MapMyFitness
  • FitBit
  • CarePass

I was excited to see a couple of very well-known apps that can be used at NetPulse. I think that was a smart move to try and get those companies on board, because to me, they seem like the apps that most people probably use. MyFitnessPal is definitely my favorite food and exercise tracker, and if I were to want to use something like NetPulse, the fact that MyFitnessPal would be a determining factor.

One additional feature that NetPulse has that I thought was neat is the club app. It allows you to check out class schedules and track your exercise at your fitness club. While it works best if your club has fitness equipment that is compatible with NetPulse, even if it doesn’t, the xCapture feature lets you take pictures of the end-of-workout stats to record late. You get credit for checking out the class schedules, and all types of workouts can be tracked.

After you’ve set up your account, you can start to find out what NetPulse is all about. You can set up fitness and health goals to be tracked, sign up for challenges, and compete, team up, and encourage others.

This is really cool, and I think people that are really passionate about using mobile technology to track their exercise and nutrition will really get a lot of out of this. I’ll definitely be interested in trying it out once it’s available for the public!

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March 22, 2013 I Written By

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.

Filed Under: Android  Apple  Gadgets  Health Care  Healthcare IT  Medical Devices  mHealth  Mobile Health Care  Patient Home Monitoring  Smart Phones  Social Networking Health
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Smart Phones and mHealth Apps May Be Taxable

Do you love using your smart phone for medical purposes? Chances are, if you’re reading this, you probably do. Well, it sounds like Obamacare might just take some of the fun out of it.

According to Fox News, under the ACA, medical device manfacturers carry a 2.3 percent tax. And since smart phones and tablets can be used for medical reasons, they might just fall under that as well. And apparently, the FDA has indicated they are looking into this regulation. And Rep. Marsha Blackburn, vice chairwoman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said back in 2011 that this is not good news for consumers:

It is going to drive up the cost to consumers and it’ll drive up the cost of your cell phone.

I don’t know about you, but my cell phone bill is already way too high — and my husband and I even split the bill with my mom, dad, and little brother. Even the thought of possibly being taxed makes me want to get rid of any of my mHealth apps and devices. Of course, I won’t, because I really use them, but I do hope that this doesn’t actually happen.

I can’t imagine there is anything positive about this, but if you can think of any, please, enlighten me. I think that this will make many people turned off to the idea of mHealth, because I know that at least for me, using my smart phone to help manage my health is, in part, to help me save money. Adding a tax to smart phones and tablets will make it harder to seem like I’m doing that.

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March 20, 2013 I Written By

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.

Filed Under: Health Care  Healthcare IT  Healthcare Social Media  iPad  iPhone  Medical Devices  mHealth  Mobile Health Care  Patient Home Monitoring  Smart Phones  Tablets
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Happtique Unveils Find Draft of Certification Standards

Because I’ve covered Happtique a few times in the past, I thought I would do a brief update on the latest from the company.

Happtique announced on February 27th that the final draft of the app certification standards are completed. They can be viewed here. The standards fall into four categories that mHealth apps will be evaluated and certified against. These cateogires are operability, privacy, security and content. While the company isn’t yet accepting apps to be certified, app creators can expect to pay between $2,500 and $3,000 to have their app reviewed.

Fierce Mobile Healthcare reported that Ben Chodor, CEO of Happtique, told them that the mHealth market is a “Wiild West” environment. This is because “no one knows where they come from and the apps haven’t been properly reviewed.” And with there being more than 40,000 mHealth apps available right now, there’s definitely bound to be some bad ones. These apps could range from just having inaccurate information, to making outrageous claims.

In the same article, Fierce Mobile Healthcare talked about how a recent probe from the New England Center for Investigative Reporting showed how there are a lot of deceptive mHealth apps out there. As they put it, “consumers are being ‘bamboozled by hucksters.’”  The survey found that, of the 1,500 apps involved, more than 20 percent were not legitimate, and could possibly endanger people. Kind of scary. One would hope someone would be able to discern if something is real or not, but I imagine there’s some pretty savvy people out there who can make something look more real than it actual is.

I’m excited that it looks like Happtique is just about ready to start reviewing apps and certifying them. I think that it will really help add legitimacy to mHealth, and hopefully get more people to trust it — consumers and physicians alike.

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March 11, 2013 I Written By

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.

Filed Under: Health Care  mHealth  Mobile Health Care  Smart Phones
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T2 Mood Tracker Updated and Wins Award

Several months ago, The Department of Defense released LifeArmor, an app created for military families coping with stress.  T2 Mood Tracker, released in 2010, was also created by a department in the Department of Defense. This app was created to help people, particularly those in the military, track their emotions over time and be able to use it to discuss with their healthcare provider. Although this app has been available for awhile, it recently had some updates.

The app was originally created for military personnel, but it has become very popular with people not in the military as well. It comes with six pre-loaded “issues” that can be tracked, though customized ones can be added as well. The six included are anxiety, depression, general well-being, head injury, post traumatic stress disorder, and stress. After selecting the issues, the user simply moves the slider to select which word describes them best at any point.

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After doing this, the app will automatically graph the results, and a user can also write down notes throughout the day, to give insight to why certain times were worse/better than other times.

With the recent update, users can do quite a few new things, which include:

  • PDF or CSV generated reports that can be printed or email for a provider
  • Data can be backed up to a phone’s SD card
  • Find psychological health support in your area
  • Set reminders to update moods
  • Results are shown in easy to read graphs

I really like this app, from what I’ve seen, and I think the updates make it even more user friendly, and helpful for those that are using it. I’m glad that it is now being encouraged for people in and outside of the military to use it as well.

This app also won first place in the general wellness category of the Apps4Army competition. It can be downloaded for Android and iOS devices, free of charge.

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February 28, 2013 I Written By

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.

Filed Under: Health Care  Healthcare IT  iPad  iPhone  Medical Devices  mHealth  Mobile Health Care  Smart Phones
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