3 Keys to Healthcare Gaming

Jonah Comstock has a great article over on mobi health news about Ayogo building an adherence game for big pharma. The article is short on details since Michael Fergusson, CEO of Ayogo, wasn’t given permission to demonstrate the game. However, the article highlights three elements that I have yet to see really done well in the “gaming healthcare” space. Each one of them is incredibly powerful and could change healthcare, but I have yet to see them implemented well. They are:

  • Social
  • Fun
  • Competition

I can’t think of three more powerful motivators that exist. People love to be social (see Facebook). We love to have fun. Most of us also love a good competition.

It sounds like Ayogo is trying incorporate all 3 of these elements into an ARG (Alternate Reality Game) that helps to improve prescription compliance. You don’t need all 3 elements to create a successful application, but how powerful it is if you can nail all three of them.

I think the concept of healthcare gaming is an important one and someone is going to finally crack the code. The problem I’ve seen is that the healthcare games I’ve seen too date are too much healthcare and not enough game. As I’ve written about before, health improvement needs to be a side effect of enjoying the game. Basically, you should want to play the game whether there was a health benefit or not. That’s a high barrier to overcome, but has a nice pot of gold waiting on the other side for whoever cracks the code.

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June 28, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 6000 articles with John having written over 3000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 14 million times. John also manages Healthcare IT Central and Healthcare IT Today, the leading career Health IT job board and blog. John 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: and and .

Filed Under: Health Care  Health Games  Healthcare IT  mHealth  Mobile Health Care
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Pain Squad App Helps Adolescent Cancer Patients

I can’t even imagine what a scary experience it would be to have cancer, let along as a child. One of the ways to treat the symptoms of cancer is to understand the pain level, and what the patient is feeling. However, that can be difficult to get a full grasp on, especially in children. If they aren’t tracking it daily, then information collected can be flawed.

Last year, an app was released in beta testing at a Canadian hospital in Toronto to help doctors understand more fully what their younger patients were feeling as they underwent cancer treatment. The app, called Pain Squad, was developed using the feedback from children and teenagers who had cancer. It involves pain surveys that have to be filled out twice daily, but involves the child and engages them.

The app features videos of celebrities from popular law enforcement shows, Rookie Blue and Flashpoint, giving motivation to kids as they do a certain amount of journals in a row, and they can be promoted to different ranks. This video does a great job of explaining the app, and shows some of the videos. They are so motivating!

I really liked this quote, from the parents of a little girl named Olivia, who was a study participant:

Filling out a paper pain journal was like homework. The Pain Squad app is interactive and the more Olivia used it, the more rewards she got. It only takes a few minutes to complete but it gave Olivia a better understanding of and more control over her pain.”

Last year, this was in some of the final stages of testing, and because of it’s success, it was set to be released in other areas in Canada, as well as outside of Canada. I’m not sure if it’s officially been released since then, but I love the idea of this. There’s only so much you can determine from asking someone to point at a smiley face on a poster board to describe their pain level (I personally never really know what to say when I’m confronted with that sign!)

This app is designed for the iPhone.

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June 26, 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  iPhone  Medical Devices  mHealth  Patient Home Monitoring
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“The Kaiser Way” – Kaiser Permanente’s Approach to Mobile Healthcare

Kaiser Permanente is the healthcare provider I went to since the time I was born, until I went to college. Imagine my surprise when I headed off to school and discover that it didn’t even exist in the state I moved to. In my limited scope of knowledge, I think I thought Kaiser was the only healthcare provider out there!

Even though I’ve come to realize there is definitely more than one healthcare provider out there, I think I’ll always like Kaiser. My husband and I are back in Colorado, and are currently working to get a plan covered by Kaiser. As I’ve heard my parents talk about them, and seen some of the services offered, I’ve been impressed with what they have to offer, and how it seems like they’ve been very involved in mobile healthcare. So I wasn’t too surprised when I saw  that talks about how Kaiser has made it possible for their patient’s to connect with their doctors via email.

In the article, Bernard J. Tyson, Kaiser Permanente’s Incoming Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said of this mobile app that “It’s something our members wanted, they have it and they love it.” I think that this goes to show that Kaiser is really trying to be intune with the changing healthcare world, and what their patients wnat. Since being launched, there have been 14 million e-visits, Tyson said, and members can access these visits through a free mobile app.

Patients are able to connect with their doctor through the app by emailing them questions, making appointments, and accessing lab results. It allows patients to decide whether or not they actually need to make an appointment, as well as build a stronger relationship with their physician. Kaiser has worked hard to ensure the safety of the patients using this app, as that is definitely a big concern across the board when it comes to mHealth.

Personally, I love the idea about being able to email your physician. Back in Utah, I was overall impressed with the patient portals that were available to me, but I was disappointed that it wasn’t easier to connect with my doctors. In fact, there was one instance where I tried to get in contact with a physician for over a month, just getting the run around from her assistants, and I eventually just gave up. The doctor seemed very on top of things, but her staff was not, and I always wished I had been able to just contact her quickly and easily through a method like the one that Kaiser has in place.

I won’t go over everything that is talked about in this article, but I highly recommend reading it. It sounds like Kaiser has a lot in store for the future. Tyson mentioned that the obvious next “natural progression” is for telehealth. I really found this article to be really excited, and I can’t wait to see what Kaiser has in store. Hopefully other healthcare systems will take note and follow in their suite.

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June 24, 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  Medical Devices  mHealth  Mobile Health Care  Patient Home Monitoring  Telemedicine
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As you know, we’ve been pretty high on Google Glasses on this blog. Katie’s written a few articles about it including: “” and “Goggles Suggested for Stroke Monitoring“. I’ve said before that whether Google Glass is the product that will win this category, the idea of always on computing that is available to you in real time with little to no interaction is indeed a game changing technology. Google or someone is going to get this right and it’s going to change so many things for the good.

I heard a really simple example that illustrates this idea. Imagine a Google Glass 911 service. The first thing they teach you in First Aid and CPR is to ask someone near by to call 911. Think about how that simple task changes with Google Glass. Hands free, the person could approach the injured victim and with their voice say, “Ok Glass. Dial 911.” Instant connection to a 911 operator who will have a voice and video connection to you along with the GPS coordinates of your location.

This takes being a 911 operator to a whole new level. Now they can see the victim and can give much better instructions. Plus, the person helping the victim can administer care while talking with the 911 operator hands free. What a compelling use case!

Turns out this could benefit the paramedics as well who could have their Google Glass video feed connected to the ER doctor who can see and instruct them where appropriate. The ER doctor could give instructions to the paramedic while the paramedic works hands free. The ER doctor could even send the paramedic images or video of what the paramedic should be doing.

I’m sure we could extrapolate this more into many other areas of healthcare, but you get the idea. It’s amazing to think what the mature technology could do in this regard.

Before you get too excited about the technology, (who I hear has a device #glassenvy) posted a to the most comprehensive Google Glass article I’ve found. For those not interested in reading the lengthy article, the summary is that Google Glass still has a long ways to go to become a mature technology and achieve what I described above. However, I agree with the writer that this is a device of historical significance. It’s a category defining product.

No doubt Google Glass is an alpha release of a device. So, we should all be aware of that and treat it as such. Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten my hands on a Google Glass device yet, but no doubt will spring at the chance to try it. While glass is full of limitations today, as the hardware and software mature, I can see some really valuable ways I could use something like this in healthcare and my life.

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June 21, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 6000 articles with John having written over 3000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 14 million times. John also manages Healthcare IT Central and Healthcare IT Today, the leading career Health IT job board and blog. John 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: and and .

Filed Under: Health Care  Healthcare IT  mHealth  Mobile Health Care
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BlueStar By WellDoc To Be First Mobile Prescription Therapy

You may be familiar with WellDoc already. They are distributors of a mobile app that was created to help manage diabetes, which has been very successful. And just a few days ago, they released something else that appears to be rather monumental.

The service is called BlueStar, and is the mobile version of the diabetes management program. What’s so monumental about this, is that it is the first disease therapy to be prescribed through an app. In addition to that, it is also the first that can be eligible for reimbursement through insurance. Not all insurance companies will cover it, but self-insured companies like Ford, Rite Aid, and DexCom have said BlueStar will become a part of their pharmacy coverage.

BlueStar features many of the same features that Diabetes Manager, the first WellDoc program, did which include getting alerts when their blood sugar level is too low or high and charts to detect trends. It suggests tips for getting blood sugar higher. However, what’s new is that BlueStar can provide feedback concerning medication dosage, give better coaching, and even recommendations to a doctor.

Just like any prescription, a doctor can prescibe BlueStar for a certain period of time in addition to medications. When a pharmacy receives that prescription, they will forward it on to WellDoc, who will have someone help the patient setup BlueStar on their device. BlueStar will calculate how much insulin a patient should take, depending on the attending physician’s recommendations, blood sugar levels, and how many carbs were eaten at a certain time. If a treatment regimen is deemed to be ineffective for a patient, a report will be sent to the doctor recommendation a new regimen.

Because diabetes truly affects so many across the country, this could mean a lot to many people. Of course, there are questions about how effective it can be, since many people may become unmotivated after using the app for a certain period of time. Time will only tell.

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June 19, 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  Blackberry  Gadgets  Healthcare IT  iPad  iPhone  Medical Devices  mHealth  Mobile Health Care  Smart Phones
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S Health Gives Comprehensive View of Health

So I just traded in my Nexus S for a Galaxy S2. I know, I know — the Galaxy S4 just came out, so I’m a little bit behind the game. Still, it’s a good upgrade, and I’m loving having it. However, when someone mentioned on Facebook how much they loved S Health, a feature on the new Galaxy S4, I had to check it out. And, of course, it made me a little bit jealous that my older Galaxy didn’t appear to have it.

So what is S Health? Well, it was launched last year, and the newest version was released with the S4, optimized to work with some of the senors that are integrated into the S4. While the S Health has many similar features to other devices on the market, such as FitBit — including a built-in pedometer and diet tracking — it also has some features that are rather unique.

The feature that stood out most to me was the Comfort Level. It tells you what your comfort level is, by pulling in the ambient temperature and humidity of the room you are in. While I am not totally sure what the point of knowing this would be, it’s cool that it can do that. You can track all your progress in a variety of different charts, and sync it with third-party blood pressure and glucose monitors. All of these things combined seem like they would give you a pretty comprehensive look at your health profile.

Overall, I wouldn’t buy the Galaxy S4 just for this feature, but it is a nice added bonus. If you already have a smart phone that works well for you, I’d go with a less expensive option for a wearable a device, rather than shelling out the cash for this. It also sounds like they have some more things in the work for S Health, so be on the lookout for that in the future!

Of all the wearable devices out there, do you have a favorite?

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June 17, 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  Health Care  Healthcare Social Media  Medical Devices  mHealth  Mobile Health Care
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Doctor Mom by Health Tap – Consult A Doctor Who’s Been There

Have you ever been to the doctor and felt like they totally had no idea what you were going through? I know I have. Which is understandable in some ways — I mean, not every doctor is going to have experience with every ailment or condition. However, when it comes to my son…I want to be able to talk to someone who has gone through similar experiences. Sometimes it’s nice for reassurance, or even to feel justified in being concerned about something.

By now, it might seem like I’m border-line obsessed with Health Tap, especially because today, I’m going to share with you their latest feature called Doctor Mom. This company just seems to be really innovative, and is churning out awesome services like crazy. However, I think this is definitely my favorite concept yet.

When you ask a question at Doctor Mom, the question is assigned to doctor, who also happens to be a mom who has raised children of her own. The website lists the following benefits of this program:

  • Emphathetic, compassionate, and caring answers
  • “Been there, done that” answers based on personal knowledge and experience
  • The ability to dive deeper into women’s issues

These doctors know what it is like to be pregnant and to have a child. I’m sure the majority of them have seen many different illnesses, and talked to many paranoid parents. And because of that, they are able to connect better with moms. I’m not saying that male doctors can’t show empathy and be great doctors — my primary care physician, and my son’s pediatrician, both of which I love, are males. But I still love this idea. 

I know I’m always texting my mom or sisters and asking them questions about my son, even though most of the time I know they don’t really have an answer. It’s just nice to get reassurance from someone that has “been there.”  However, I look forward to using this service in the feature!

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June 14, 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  mHealth  Mobile Health Care
Tags:Doctor Mom      

Submit and Vote on BlueButton Ideas

At Health Datapalooza, Health Tech Hatch announced the Blue Button CoDesign Challenge. Certainly we’ve seen hundreds of challenges come out over the past couple years, but this challenge is a bit different.

Most challenges provide a prize for some goal and then teams of people get together to create a product or service that helps achieve that goal. In the BlueButton CoDesign Challenge they’re starting by asking patients the question, “Build me a Blue Button-enabled tool that….” So far 74 ideas have been submitted as answers to that question. Hundreds of comments have been added on each idea and thousands have voted on which idea has the most potential.

I do have some concern with how they’re doing the voting. I think it’s a mistake to display how many votes each idea has, because then it skews people’s future vote. The same goes for listing the top ideas on the home page. That encourages the casual visitor to just vote on the top ideas which gives the top ideas an unfair advantage. Plus, if someone like me tweets out my idea and gets my followers to vote for me, then I automatically skew to the top page. In fact, this voting reminds me a bit of the upper right quadrant syndrome that Jonathan Bush talked about at TEDMED.

Of course, there are always issues when you deal with voting. However, I love the idea of getting the patient crowd involved in sharing their ideas of how to make healthcare better. For example, e-Patient Dave offered this great idea on managing the pills you take. He’s right that all of the data is there, so why hasn’t someone built it? The answer is likely that it’s not the focus of the people that have the data. This is why EHR APIs are so important.

Just reading through the list of ideas is quite inspiring. I’ll be interested to see which ideas win and if any developers jump on board to build those ideas. The problem with most people is that they’d rather build their own ideas than someone else’s.

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June 12, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 6000 articles with John having written over 3000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 14 million times. John also manages Healthcare IT Central and Healthcare IT Today, the leading career Health IT job board and blog. John 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: and and .

Filed Under: Health Care  Healthcare IT
Tags:BlueButton  e-Patient Dave  EHR API  Health Tech Hatch  Jonathan Bush    Upper Right Quadrant Syndrome

Lumosity: An Exercise Program For Your Brain

So often, we focus on our physical health, but neglect our mental health. All forms of dementia are devastating. Many people complain of brain fog. Thousands of people suffer from attention disorders. While I don’t claim to know the cure for any of these things (or even the cause) I do think that exercising the mind is just as important as exercising your body. I mean, if your brain fails, then your life ceases to exist. It’s a pretty important thing to take care of!

I saw a commercial today for a website called Lumosity.com. It sparked my interest, so I decided to check it out. The website says that it “turns neuroscience breakthroughs into fun, effective games” and it’s a way to “harness your brains neuroplasticity [the brain's ability to grow and expand] and train your way into a brighter life.”

To be honest, it seems like it is set up a bit like an exercise website. When you sign up, you answer some questions about where you want changes to be made. Changes can be made in any of five categories, all of which have subcategories. These categories are memory, attention, speed, flexibility, and problem solving. You can select as many or as few of these categories as you want. After doing this, you can create an account and view your free and personalized training program, and you can personalize your training even further.

The program changes with you — as you get better at the challenges, you get newer ones. Each of the “sessions” include a variety of games to help you improve in the areas you initially selected. You get points very every game you do, to help you track your progress. The games are actually pretty fun, and challenging, and scientifically developed to help increase your brain function.

The basic version of Lumosity is free, but if you really want to get into the program, there are paid options. This gives you more games each day, more personalized training, and more. People spend hundreds, maybe even thousands, on personal training at a gym, as well as countless hours…so why not spend some of those valuable resources on making sure your brain is in tip-top shape? I thought this was a cool idea, and I think it could be a great resources for anyone wanting to exercise their mind. Apparently, 97% of Lumosity users improve after just 10 hours of training (which can be seen in the personalized tracking portion of the website.)_

Lumosity Brain Trainer is also available as a free download for iOS devices.

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June 10, 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  Gadgets  Health Care  Health Games  iPad  iPhone  mHealth  Mobile Health Care  Social Networking Health
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5 Health-Related Snapshots To Keep In Your Phone

Yesterday, I came across an interesting article on Pinterest about different snapshots you should keep in your phone’s photo album. While it mentioned quite a few random things, like reminders of where you parked, measurements for an air filter, or recipes from a book or a magazine, there was one related to health care that made me start thinking.

The article suggested taking photos of prescription bottles, so you don’t forgot the name of your prescription, or the prescription number. When I saw this, I started thinking about what other health-related things you could take pictures of. This, in fact, could be the simplest way to create a portable PHR.

So what are some things you could take photos of to store on your phone in case of an emergency? Here are a few ideas I came up with:

  • Picture of insurance card. Awhile back when we went to an Urgent Care clinic, we were asked to check-in using Phreesia. Instead of giving our insurance card, we just had to type in our insurance id number. I’m notorious for misplacing insurance cards, so if I ran into a situation like this, all would not be lost, if I had a copy of the insurance card on my phone!
  • Photos of medicine: As was suggested in the article that prompted this post, taking a photo of any bottles of medicine you have to take would be helpful as well. There have been several times that I’ve called a pharmacy while I’ve been out and about, and they’ve asked for my prescription number. Of course, I never know it. But having a photo with that information would be helpful. It might also be helpful to take picture of medicine you need to buy at the store.
  • Along the same lines, having an updated photo with any medications you or your child is currently taking. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve been at a doctor and they ask what medication my son or I had been on recently, and I totally forget.
  • Emergency contacts. Obviously, you can store emergency contacts in your address book, but this would be a good way to make it so you don’t have to go scrolling through your contacts…especially when there actually is an emergency, where things can be hectic. This would also be an easy way to send numbers and names to someone else, in case that was necessary. It would be a lot easier to send one photo, rather than trying to copy and paste different phone numbers.
  • If you can have different folders of albums on your phone, you could store all these in one labeled “health” or “emergency.

There are a lot of apps that could probably do these same things, but for those that want to make things as simple as possible — I think this is a good route. There are obviously some downsides — mainly, it isn’t a secure way to store information. But it’s an interesting way to store information that you need to get to quickly. Can you think of any other snapshots that might be helpful to have?

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June 5, 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  Smart Phones
Tags:  Healthcare Snapshots  PHR


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