Study Shows Mobile Devices Increase Patient Engagement

I’ve heard many people ask the question of whether or not mobile health care helps or hurts patient engagement. The latest study says it definitely improves it.

A study conducted by the Center for Connected Health, published in 2013, found that when a patient used a wireless device to track data, they were found to track their blood pressure more often than those who else a telephone modem device.  In this study, the median age was 61.7 years old. Here are some of the other findings:

  • Those using wireless devices recorded and engaged more frequently 
  • The number of uploads per day were higher with those using a wireless device.

Personally, this doesn’t come as much of a surprise. If I had the option of tracking health data on a mobile device, or on a regular telephone, I would definitely choose the mobile device. It’s so much more convenient, and easier to remember. I don’t know if this was an option in the study, but I know with many mobile devices, you can set up push alerts. If a person gets an alert, reminding them to record certain information, I feel like it would help as well.

What I thought was most interesting was the median age — 61.7. I don’t think it would come as any surprise that someone quite a bit younger (myself) would think that mobile healthcare would help with patient engagement, especially with the younger generation. However, the fact that the participants in this study are older, I think that is what makes this study a little more monumental.  At least with the people I know that are around that age, mobile devices can be intimidating. But if they are set up with their device, shown how it works, and understand it, I think that people of all ages will start to benefit from mobile devices.

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July 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: Health Care  Medical Devices  mHealth  Mobile Health Care  Patient Home Monitoring
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5 Types of Medical Apps to Avoid

We’re obviously big proponents of the use of mobile apps in healthcare. For example, we recently listed the top medical apps, and we’ve even written about insurance companies reimbursing medical apps. These are all important trends in mobile health and we’re going to see more and more of it in the future.

The problem is that along with all of the good mobile health applications out there, there are also plenty of scammers making false claims about the medical value of their application. These should be avoided.

Mashable worked together with Joseph Kvedar from the Center of Connected Health to create a list of apps you should avoid:

1. Apps That Use Your Phone’s Light
2. Spot-Checkers
3. Cures From Sound
4. Insulin Dose Calculators
5. Treatment Testers

It’s sad for me to think that people somehow think the light on their phone or the sound on their phone has medical value. It’s amazing what will fool some people. Plus, I have little doubt that we’ll see even more pernicious and difficult to detect mobile health app scams.

A quote from Dr. Misra from iMedicalApps sums up the issue well, “Any app that claims to treat a disease of any kind should raise red flags upfront.” Consult your doctor if you’re not sure.

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July 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  mHealth  Mobile Health Care
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Top Medical Apps

 

It’s almost boring to look at a list of top medical apps these days. Mostly because you know that the top medical app is going to be Epocrates. If Epocrates isn’t at the top of the list, then you know that something is wrong with the list. However, I also can’t help looking at who else is on the list. Epocrates can’t hold down the top spot forever. So, I like to look at the rest of the list and see what other up and coming apps might displace them.

Here’s the list of top medical apps for iPhone:

  • Epocrates
  • Medical Encyclopedia
  • Medscape
  • Pill Identifier by Drugs.com
  • My Chart

Here’s the list of top medical apps for Android:

  • Test Your Hearing
  • ICE
  • Diagnosaurus DDx
  • Speed Bones MD
  • Home Remedies (Lite)

Are these your top medical apps? What other apps would you like to see on the list?

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July 10, 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: Android  Apple  Health Care  Healthcare IT  iPad  iPhone  mHealth  Mobile Health Care
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ROI Calculator for Heart Failure Monitoring

I’m in love with any tool that tries to understand the benefits of using healthcare IT. So, I’m completely intrigued by what the Center for Connected Health, Center for Technology and Aging, and the Carlifornia Healthcare Foundation are doing with this ROI Calculator for Heart Failure Monitoring.

Here’s a description of what they’re doing:

The Center for Technology and Aging (CTA) and the Partners HealthCare Center for Connected Health (CCH) developed a return on investment (ROI) evaluation tool to help health care organizations assess the intrinsic financial costs and benefits of RPM technologies. Aggregate findings from this evaluation will be used to identify the benefits of RPM technologies for patients, providers, and family caregivers; strategies for program deployment; lessons learned; and program outcomes, including program ROI.

Check out the step by step analysis of the ROI of such a program. I’d love to hear what others think of the tool.

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July 8, 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
Tags:Carlifornia Healthcare Foundation    Center for Technology and Aging  Heart Failure Monitoring  ROL  RPM  RPM Technologies

Mobile Health’s Battle for the Wrist

I first heard the concept of the battle for the wrist at a session on mobile health technologies at SXSW. Turns out that this is a really important concept and the speaker was absolutely right that there’s currently a HUGE battle brewing to “own” people’s wrists.

This was confirmed to me today when I saw this tweet:

The article lists about a dozen HUGE companies that are working on some sort of wrist related technology. The idea of a smart watch is powerful, because a watch is something that we’re use to wearing. Maybe even more important is that we’re use to seeing people wearing a watch. So, wearing a smart watch doesn’t change people’s behaviors or interactions with other people.

The real question I have in the mobile health space is how much power can really be derived from the wrist. Will it have to be connected to other things we wear? I think it will, but we’ll see.

What is clear is that having a computer attached to you in some way is going to change a lot of things in our life including how we manage our health. The wrist is making a strong play to be the place where that computer is stored.

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July 5, 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: Healthcare IT  mHealth  Mobile Health Care  Smart Phones
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Mobile App Reimbursement

It’s only been a question of time for when insurance companies would start reimbursing companies for a mobile health application. In an article on Forbes, they talk about WellDoc being the First to Sell Mobile Prescription Therapy. The company WellDoc has gotten FDA clearance for their mobile application BlueStar.

WellDoc has started to sale BlueStar through self-insured companies, but will now have to get out there and work with doctors much like drug companies have to do. The next generation of pharma sales reps are going to be peddling mobile applications to doctors.

The key to what WellDoc is doing is their year-long randomized clinical trial to prove that its product works and doesn’t cause side effects. The question I have is how many mobile health applications are planning to go to this effort.

I was a little disappointed to find out that WellDoc’s mobile application does require a mobile coach as well. So, the mobile is an important part of the product, but they still have a human participating as well. Certainly they’re treading lightly in this new form of mobile therapy.

I love this quote from the Forbes article:

All this was new territory for pharmacies and the National Council for Prescription Drug Programs which maintains standards for exchanging pharmacy data. “Their reaction was ‘you’re like a drug, but you’re not; you’re like a device, but you’re not,’” says Bergstrom. “They realized this is where the future is going,” adds Anand Iyer, WellDoc’s president.

No doubt there’s going to be a lot of challenges that WellDoc faces as it tries to sale doctors on using this product. However, they’re right that it is the future.

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July 3, 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  Medical Devices  mHealth  Mobile Health Care
Tags:    Mobile Diabetes Management  National Council for Prescription Drug Programs  

Mobile Health Generation Gap

I’m spending this week in Utah with my parents. It’s great for my kids to be around their grandparents for such a long time period. Plus, my parents live in such a beautiful place in the mountains. However, last night we had an interesting experience. My 9 year old son was playing a game on an HP Windows 8 tablet. Soon his aunt joined him in playing the game. Then, my 6 year old daughter joined in with my 3 year old watching near by.

After they’d played the game for a little while, the tablet somehow made it over to grandma as my children and sister invited my mom to play the game on the tablet. Her reaction was pretty amazing. She was almost afraid to even have the tablet on her lap. My guess is that she was afraid to break it.

I then hopped in on the action and asked my 3 year old to teach grandma how to play the game. My three year old son happily handed the tablet to grandma and started showing her how you touch the screen at appropriate times to play the game. My mother never once put her finger on the tablet (maybe she was afraid to get fingerprints on it).

To add to the comparison, I had my laptop out and had a baby picture of my oldest son on my laptop. She asked me if I could make it bigger. Then, she proceeded to take her 2 fingers and try and expand the picture by touching the laptop screen. Of course, nothing happened because the laptop didn’t have a touch screen.

Another example was when I was in the car driving to Utah. We were having some discussion and a question came up and we didn’t know the answer. My 9 year old said, “Did you ask Galaxy?” (Galaxy is like Siri on the Samsung S3)

These are just simple illustrations, but they are important ones. My mother is completely averse to the technology. My children assume that everything works using touch. Developing mobile health applications for each of these types of users is very different. It’s going to take a pretty unique mobile health application to be able to be adopted by across all generations.

Sure, I’ve heard that many seniors are great at technology. It’s true that we probably underestimate seniors’ ability to use and benefit from technology. However, the mobile health app developers that don’t keep age differences in mind will quickly learn the differences once users start downloading their app.

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July 1, 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
Tags:Mobile Health for Seniors  Mobile Health Generation


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