MY HEALTH MAGAZINE

Showing posts with label apps. Show all posts

An App That Tries to Predict the Future of Cities

From TheAtlanticCities "The Harvard Graduate School of Design released the new Ecological Urbanism app last month. The interactive app, available at the iTunes store, adapts content from the GSD book of the same name, which explores how designers can unite urbanism with environmentalism. Combining data from around the world, the app "reveals and locates current practices, emerging trends, and opportunities for new initiatives" in regard to the future of cities." Imagine something like this for predicting the future of health systems and hospitals, combining measures of community health, strategic trends, financial viability, with experts from around the world adding data and context. Hmmm.

12:32 PM

Is There An App for Patient Engagement?

No, says Steve Wilkins, MPH, writing at KevinMD.com.

Physicians, hospitals and other providers are being misled by industry pundits claiming that more health information technology (as in EMRs, PHRs, smartphone apps, and web portals) is the key to greater patient engagement. It’s not.

Part of the misunderstanding concerning the role of HIT comes from how the discussion about patient engagement is being framed. According to the pundits, patient engagement is the physician or hospital’s responsibility. And like everything else these days, we can fix it if we just throw more technology at the problem. Can anyone say Stage 2 Meaningful Use requirements?

[...]

The role of physicians, hospitals and other providers is not so much one of needing to engage patients in their care. Rather, providers need to “be more engaging” to patients who are already actively engaged in their health.

Take the simple act of a trip to the doctor’s office. Before a person shows up at the doctor’s office they have to 1) have a reason or need (symptoms, a concern, chronic condition), 2) believe that the need or reason merits seeing the doctor vs. taking care of it at home themselves – this generally implies cognition and doing research, i.e., talking with friends, going on line, etc., 3) make the appointment (by calling or going online), 4) show up for the appointment, and 5) think about what they want to say to the doctor. The point here is that by definition, people who show up for a doctor’s appointment are already engaged.

Read the whole thing, here.

6:03 PM

"Enterprise IT has plenty of room for improvement..."

"Rogue IT" is about to wreak havoc at work" is Fortune's headline. Not a moment too soon, I might add.
From the article:

"Rogue IT is the name given to the informal, ad hoc software and devices brought by employees into the workplace. If you've ever taken your own iPad to work or used cloud-based software like Evernote or Dropbox in the office, you may well be an offender. And you're not alone. Some 43% of businesses report that their employees are using cloud services independently of the IT department, according to a recent survey of 500 IT decision makers.

"In the past, these enterprise software and hardware decisions were often the exclusive domain of a company's chief information officer or CIO, the senior executive in charge of information technology and computer systems. "Sitting in his high chair in a grey suit barking orders, [the CIO would make] product decisions for big companies with even larger user bases," explains Peter Fenton of tech investors Benchmark Capital. Rogue IT turns that model on its head, effectively crowdsourcing IT choices to employees. So where does this leave the venerable CIO? And what does it mean for the future of IT at the world's largest enterprises?

"The good news is that enterprise IT has plenty of room for improvement. "[Traditional IT] carries connotations of interminable rollouts, bewildering interfaces, obscure functionality and high prices," writes CIO.com's Bernard Golden. Security, compliance and back-end compatibility have traditionally topped CIO wish lists, not usability. As a result, employees have sometimes been left with programs that are anything but intuitive. This exacted a heavy toll in terms of time, money and organizational well-being.

[...]

"Bloated, enterprise software no longer cuts it. Seduced by Facebook (FB) and similarly intuitive platforms at home, millennials balk at staring down monster spreadsheets or decoding web 1.0 UIs at work, writes Fast Company contributor Marcia Conner. Increasingly, they expect their work suites and software to be just as user-friendly as the apps they know and love in their personal lives, a trend known as the consumerization of IT. And they're willing to go outside company walls to find products that work best for them."

So do we still need a CIO? Apparently we do, but with employees and customers doing the heavy lifting, voting with their feet (to mix a bunch of metaphors,) the CIO will finally have time for the big, important, profitable stuff. OK.

But if you think it's just your employees (and maybe a few physicians) going rogue, well, your customers went over that wall a long time ago. You probably didn't notice or care until that first iPad appeared in your waiting room.

Read the whole thing, here.

And, here, from HootSource, HootSuite's blog.

6:58 AM

Tracking Afib On Your iPhone

From Dr. Westby G. Fisher, writing at MedCity News: "Patient illustrates how the iPhone and $1.99 could disrupt the medical device industry."

"Today in my clinic, a patient brought me her atrial fibrillation burden history on her iPhone and it cost her less than a $10 co-pay. For $1.99 US, she downloaded the iPhone app Cardiograph to her iPhone.

[...]

"I got a relative picture of how often she was having afib and she got the opportunity to help me with her care.

"Was this a medical device? No, it was an iPhone app. Was it perfect? No it wasn’t. I certainly couldn’t differentiate frequent PAC’s or PVC’s from atrial fibrillation reliably. It was NOT an EKG after all. But we were past that point in her evaluation. I just needed to know how often she was having her known paroxysmal atrial fibrillation and she wanted to keep a convenient record of her episodes.

"Was it helpful in this case? Absolutely.

"More importantly, she just saved herself and the health care system a ton of money. "

10:09 AM

Study: iPads Improve Doctors' Efficiency

(CBS News) "iPads not only make doctors feel more efficient at their jobs, the device actually improved their work flow according to a new study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine."

75% of residents said iPads saved them about an hour each day.

I'll bet physician loyalty and integration rank high on your hospital's agenda. Yet what have you done lately to save YOUR docs an hour a day? No, really, I'm asking! Leave a comment...

Or connect with me (Steve Davis) on Twitter @whatifwhynot .

11:35 AM

Which Patients Will Disengage From Treatment?

Presented at AHRQ and termed a "stunning innovation in health care," Mind Field Solutions' iPhone/iPad app diagnoses which patients will disengage from treatment. The new approach also provides a neuroscientific explanation of the underlying causes behind patient disengagement.

Says neuroscientist, Dr. Andrea LaFountain, CEO and Founder of Mind Field Solutions:

"We are excited about the potential that this innovation brings to healthcare delivery, outcomes and cost. Healthcare has suffered greatly due to the inability to effectively and efficiently engage patients in their self-care. This research provides a scientific framework for engagement that creates significant impact in outcomes and cost. Our data suggests a cost savings of $3billion per annum for Medicare diabetes alone,"

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/01/06/4167823/mind-field-solutions-presents.html##storylink=cpy

1:48 PM

Jawbone’s Wristband Health Monitor

Bloomberg Business Week: "And now there’s UP. “The big idea here is to help make people consumers of their own health,” Rahman says. “We probably know less about our bodies than we do about our phones.” UP is supposed to change that. The pliable rubber-coated wristband is meant to be worn nonstop for 10 days at a time, even in bed and in the shower. An accelerometer inside tracks data like the number of steps a person takes in a day and the number of calories he or she has burned. The device also monitors sleep patterns and can be programmed as an alarm that wakes the wearer, within a preset time range, at the ideal moment in their sleep cycle. The accompanying iPhone application lets users share their UP data with friends, create personal challenges, and record and track each meal they eat."

On sale later this month for $100 at Best Buy, Target and Apple stores, UP may be the best $100 you've spent on your health.

[More, here.]

6:42 AM

Your Next Health Coach May Be...

...your car. From Edmunds Inside Line:

"Ford cars and trucks may soon be able to tell you when to take a puff on your asthma inhaler or test your blood glucose level, as the Dearborn automaker is poised to take its Sync communications system far beyond infotainment.

"The Dearborn automaker offered a tantalizing — if somewhat disconcerting — look on Wednesday at the potential for a vehicle to be your partner and coach when it comes to health and wellness.

"Ford said it was intent on demonstrating a paradigm shift in the way its Sync communications system is used. In the not-too-distant future, a car could let you know the UV index so you could apply the proper amount of sunscreen, monitor your food choices at McDonald's, or check your calendar to see whether you'll be playing sports that day and may need an extra puff or two on your asthma inhaler.

'"We're not trying to turn the car into a medical device," said Alan Hall, a Ford spokesman in a phone conversation with Inside Line. "We're a conduit for healthcare to become mobile."'

As they roll out their own health coaching strategies, do physicians and hospitals see Ford as competition? Maybe they should. And I'll bet Ford gets there first.

Actually, turning the car into a medical device is fine with me. I'd much rather deal with my mechanic than my HMO or some clinic's wretched appointment scheduling system. My mechanic only charges an arm and ONE leg.

7:32 AM

Randy Lewis writing in the LA Times, discusses a little-known aspect of Steve Jobs' legacy:

"Stevie Wonder said Thursday that he sought Jobs out late in his life to express his gratitude for matters that went well beyond what he and his company did for music.

"The one thing people aren't talking about is how he has made his technology accessible to the blind and the deaf and people who are quadriplegics and paraplegics," Wonder, 61, said. "He has affected not just my world, but the world of millions of people who without that technology would not be able to discover the world.

"His company was the first to come up with technology that made it accessible without screaming out loud 'This is for the blind; This is for the deaf.' He made it part of the actual unit itself. There was application inside the technology that allowed you to use it or not use it.

"The iPhone, iPad touch, iPod touch, all these things, even now the computer, are accessible to those who are with a physical disability," the 25-time Grammy Award winning singer, songwriter and instrumentalist said."

9:36 AM

GeekPress: "I am a physician, so I had already been using my iPad for my work, reading PDFs of medical articles, communicating with my colleagues via e-mail, etc. But when I broke my hip in an accident a few days ago, the iPad became my lifeline to the outside world..."

[Read more...]

9:25 AM