Mobile Health Missing at MGMA13

I just finished my participation at the MGMA Annual Conference in San Diego. It’s a really great event for healthcare and this year it was buzzing with practice managers that play such a crucial role to the business of healthcare.

At the conference there was certainly an extreme interest in IT as represented by the vendor floor which was dominated by health IT vendors and of course EHR vendors. There’s little doubt that the IT revolution is hitting every healthcare organization. However, as I think through all the vendors I saw and the discussions I had, mobile health wasn’t really on the radar.

Sure, every EHR vendor had their approach to mobile. I also had some discussions where we tangentially talked about some quantified self mobile devices. The conference itself had a nice mobile app which I heard was a big improvement over previous years. MGMA even mentioned that mobile was an important part of their path forward. However, I didn’t see a big presence from mobile health companies that I’d find at mHealth Summit or CES (Consumer Electronics Show).

In some ways I think this illustrates the divide that is found between the mobile health movement and healthcare organizations. Certainly many mobile health companies are thinking too far ahead, but I believe it’s also true that many healthcare organizations are way behind on what’s possible with mobile health. I think there’s going to be some unfortunate consequences if healthcare organizations choose to continue to lag behind. If I’m a doctor or a healthcare organization, I want to be part of the mobile health conversation and not just beholden to it after the fact. I’m afraid we’re heading for the later.

It’s possible there was more mobile health presence at MGMA and I just missed it. I did like that MGMA is trying to embrace social media more fully including the Cerner sponsored Tweet Street. Plus, the hashtag seemed more lively than in past years.

We’ll see how this continues to evolve, but I’d love to see more healthcare organizations embrace mobile health technologies. As it currently stands, it seems that many are choosing to ignore them.

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October 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: Healthcare IT  mHealth  Mobile Health Care
Tags:Cerner    MGMA13  Social Media

Hospital Branded App Infographic

I’m always intrigued by infographics, so I couldn’t resist the following infographic that looks at hospital branded mobile apps by MobiHealthNews. In some ways I’m surprised there aren’t more hospital branded apps, but in other ways I think patients are more tied to their primary care doctor than they are to a hospital. It was interesting that a large portion of those hospitals with a branded app are children’s hospitals.

Hospital Branded Apps Infographic

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October 7, 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:Children's Hospitals  Hospital Apps  Hospital Mobile Apps  

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.

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October 4, 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:IntelliBlast  Matthew Browning  Nurse Mobile Apps    RN

Is HIPAA Omnibus Good for mHealth Developers?


This is a really good question. If you’re not sure of HIPAA omnibus, you might check out this video where Rita Bowen discusses HIPAA Omnibus.

The article linked above suggests that HIPAA omnibus is good because it narrows when you have to disclose of a possible breach (ie. lost or stolen laptop that was encrypted wouldn’t need disclosure probably) and that PHR software doesn’t fall under HIPAA unless it’s run by a health plan or healthcare provider.

I guess I agree that in some limited ways this is helpful for mobile health developers. However, the implications of business associates is the big part of HIPAA omnibus that should have many mobile health developers concerned. Before HIPAA omnibus, the covered entity (a healthcare provider) held liability for any breach. Hover, under HIPAA omnibus, the business associate shares that liability.

While it’s true that some mobile health applications won’t be considered a business associate, many more will be considered a business associate. If this is the case for your application, you better make sure you’re compliant with HIPAA or you’re subject to any fines or penalties for HIPAA violations just like the provider was previously.

The good thing is that all of this is sketched out. Being HIPAA compliant is doable for a mobile health developer, but I’m afraid that many aren’t taking it seriously. The nice thing is that there are HIPAA training courses out there to help. I really fear for those mHealth companies that choose to do nothing.

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October 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: Healthcare IT  mHealth  Mobile Health Care
Tags:HIPAA  HIPAA Compliance  HIPAA Omnibus  HIPAA Training  mHealth Developers  mHealth HIPAA  Mobile Health HIPAA

A Few Compelling Health 2.0 Tweets

This week the Health 2.0 Conference has been happening in Silicon Valley. The twitter stream has been extremely active if you want to hear what’s being said at the conference. Here are a few nuggets of wisdom from the stream and my thoughts on them.


This is a scary idea to consider, but Francois is right about the cost of healthcare. So far I have seen little that’s working to drive the cost of healthcare down. Are feedback loops the right answer? I’m not sure, but I do think information on the costs is part of the answer.


I hope mobile health and sensors can go deeper than this. Although, I was probably drawn to the tweet because when I was younger I was hugging a girl when she asked, “Why is your heart beating so fast?” I guess she was way ahead of the sensor game.


Is this scary or exciting? I’d probably say 5 years, but otherwise agree.


Reminds me of when Farzad Mostashari asked, “Can Healthcare ‘Step on a Scale’ Today?” Data helps us realize reality.


Reminds me of the off stated, correlation does not equal causation.


Always a great reminder of what should really be the focus of healthcare: the patient.

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October 2, 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:            

17k Mobile Health, Wellness and Fitness Apps


In my last post I referenced the volume of mobile health apps that are out there. I found it interesting that at the Health 2.0 conference they put the number at 17,000 mobile health apps. That’s a lot of mHealth apps. I wonder if they have a list of all 17,000 mHealth apps somewhere.

It’s interesting for me to compare this number with the number of EHR vendors (in the 300-600 range). Everyone says we have too many EHR vendors and that we’re in for some EHR consolidation. What does that mean for the mHealth market?

Certainly in many ways it’s a very different market. Mobile health applications apply to both healthcare professionals and consumers. EHR vendors are only purchased by healthcare professionals, so there’s a smaller market. It’s challenging to consider how the mobile health application market will play out. How many of those applications will ever become a business instead of just an application?

My guess is that very few of them will really become businesses. Many of the startup mHealth applications will just close up shop. Many of the mHealth apps built by large companies will be shutdown and written off as a loss. A few startup mHealth applications will really take off and get acquired by a larger company (likely one of those who wrote off their own app).

How do you see the mobile health market playing out?

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October 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
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