Is Mobile Health Missing Nurses?

One of the most under appreciated groups in healthcare is the nurse. I’m sure that every nurse agrees with me. I think that it’s gotten better in many ways for nurses, but from my experience nurses are often taken for granted. I’m probably to blame as much as the next person.

When I think about all the things I’ve written across the Healthcare Scene network of blogs, it’s pretty rare that I ever do a post that’s focused on the nurses. I can think of hundreds and possibly thousands of times I’ve written about the impact on physicians and patients. Nurses. Not so much. Occasionally they’ll get a tangential mention, but rarely are they the center of any healthcare IT story.

As I think about the mobile health space, I think the same is often true. There are thousands of mobile apps focused on doctors. There are thousands of mobile apps focused on patients. How many are focused on nurses? I can’t remember writing about very many nurse focused mobile health apps.

I think I was reminded of this when I saw in my Twitter stream today. As an RN, he built a product called YourNurseIsOn.com which it seems has now been renamed to IntelliBlast Communication System. It was great to see a nurse providing an IT solution for nurses. I haven’t talked to Matthew for a long time, but I remember him talking about how hard it was for him to sale into hospitals. Despite the fact that it’s hard to sale anything to hospitals, I wonder if the fact that he was selling a nurse focused product made it even harder. Maybe that’s why they changed the name? I don’t know, but what I do know is that it’s been pretty rare that I’ve seen an organization focused on products for nurses.

I think most people realize the vital role that nurses play in healthcare. However, there seems to be a mismatch in the role nurses play in healthcare and the mobile and other healthcare IT tools that are built for them. I wonder what mobile health tools would be created for nurses if they were the focus and not just an afterthought.