Aetna Shuts Down CarePass – What’s It Mean?

Looks like MobiHealthNews was the first to break the story that Aetna had chose to shutdown their CarePass product. This is big news since CarePass was Aetna’s baby and calling card in the mobile health world. They had a lot riding on it. Although, I think that iTriage, which Aetna acquired, was certainly the most used app under their umbrella.

If you’ve been on the mobile health/mHealth conference circuits you know that Aetna has been everywhere. Plus, the CEO of Aetna was even a keynote speaker at HIMSS (makes you wonder how much they paid for that spot). Without their CarePass product I’ll be interested to see what Aetna does in this space. Will they basically pull out almost completely?

Sure, Aetna will always take part in some way or another, but will they be pumping money into it like they’d been doing for a while now? I don’t think they will. I think we’ll see Aetna take a backseat approach to the IT part of the industry and just hop on board other people’s work like they did with iTriage.

Another piece of the MobiHealthNews article mentioned above that really intrigued me is this:

The company found no shortage of willing partners to feed data into the app. Over the two years of its existence, CarePass interfaced with MapMyFitness, LoseIt, RunKeeper, Fooducate, Jawbone, Fitbit, fatsecret, Withings, breathresearch (makers of MyBreath), Zipongo, BodyMedia, Active, Goodchime!, MoxieFit, Passage, FitSync, FitBug, BettrLife, Thryve, SparkPeople, HealthSpark, NetPulse, Earndit, FoodEssentials, Personal.com, Healthline, GoodRx, GymPact, Pilljogger, mHealthCoach, Care4Today, and meQuilibrium.

I think there’s a lesson here when it comes to API integrations. Who would have guessed that after making such a huge investment in CarePass, Aetna would just close up shop? I’m quite sure none of these companies that integrated with CarePass’ API thought CarePass would be gone. These types of integrations can be very time consuming and now all that effort is down the drain.

Although, the bigger lesson here is that just because you integrate a bunch of data from other applications doesn’t mean your app is going to be a success. It’s what you do with the data that’s integrated that matters. That’s why I’m really skeptical about Apple Health and HealthKit. Getting the data is one thing. Making that data useful is something very different.

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August 27, 2014 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 13 million times. John also manages Healthcare IT Central and Healthcare IT Today, the leading career Health IT job board and blog. John is co-founder of InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: and .

Filed Under: Healthcare API  Healthcare IT  mHealth  Mobile Health Care
Tags:Aetna  CarePass  CarePass API  iTriage  MobiHealthNews

Timex SmartWatch Doesn’t Need a Smartphone

We’ve been covering a lot of the movement in the SmartWatch space. It’s a really interesting set of technology since every one of them integrates some piece of healthcare into their technology. One of the features of pretty much every smartwatch out there is that they’re essentially just a second screen for your smartphone. That means you need a smartphone to be able to use the smartwatch. That’s not really too much of an issue since most of us have smartphones.

While it’s true that most people have smartphones, when it comes to health and fitness you often don’t want to carry around your smartphone while you’re running, swimming, biking, etc. With this in mind, I was intrigued by the announcement of the Timex Ironman smartwatch that doesn’t require a smartphone. Here’s a short description from the WSJ article:

The point, for Timex, was to create a device that could keep someone connected during hardcore workouts without having to bring along a smartphone or music player. It’s waterproof down to 50 meters, so it’s fine for swimming and even diving, and has a Qualcomm Mirasol display, which is more visible in direct sunlight than many LCD screens.

The watch tracks a user’s speed, distance traveled and pace in real time, and can share it with friends and family who want to follow along. The wireless connectivity enables the watch to send email messages, and a “find me” mode allows users to send an alert to emergency contacts such as friends and family if trouble arises.

I see this as another great evolution of the smartwatch environment. First, it provides a health and fitness alternative that makes a lot of sense. Second, it’s really interesting to see a company like Timex getting involved in the space. It will be really interesting to see how Timex does developing a touchscreen watch since that’s not their usual skill set.

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August 20, 2014 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 13 million times. John also manages Healthcare IT Central and Healthcare IT Today, the leading career Health IT job board and blog. John is co-founder of InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: and .

Filed Under: Fitness Trackers  Gadgets  Health Care  Health Sensors  Healthcare IT  mHealth  Mobile Health Care  Smart Watch
Tags:Ironman Smartwatch  Qualcomm Mirasol    Timex  Timex Smartwatch

Physician Use of Mobile Technology Infographic

Physician Use of Mobile Technology Infographic

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August 13, 2014 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 13 million times. John also manages Healthcare IT Central and Healthcare IT Today, the leading career Health IT job board and blog. John is co-founder of InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: and .

Filed Under: Health Care  Healthcare IT  mHealth  Mobile Health Care
Tags:Health IT Infographics  Mobile Health Technology  Physician Mobile Use

FitBit Makes You Gain Weight

How’s that for a headline? That’s the story that caught my eye on this NBC – Today show article that talks about the Fitbit, Jawbone Up and Nike Fuelband tracking technology and its impact on people’s weight. First, it’s worth noting that the Today show is talking about fitness trackers. That’s a great sign of the mainstream appeal of these fitness trackers. Although, I guess we have to ask if it’s a fad.

However, back to the original part of the story. Does the FitBit make you gain weight? Obviously, a medical device doesn’t make you gain weight or make you lose weight. However, the information it offers you can influence the choices you make. The article talks about how one person compared the estimated calories burn vs the estimated calories eaten and there was a disconnect with what was happening with their body. According to the fitbit, they were burning a lot more calories than they were taking in, but they were still gaining weight.

What this highlights to me is something most of us have known forever. Weight loss is really hard and is a much more complicated problem than we want it to be. It’s simple to say that it should just be a mathematical equation of calories in and calories burned, but it’s not that simple. People’s metabolism matters. The type of calories you eat matters. I could keep going, but you get the point.

We should of course know this since the weight loss industry has to be a trillion dollar industry. People will spend hordes of money losing weight. Unfortunately, much of that money is spent on things that don’t get results. However, it’s worth noting that it’s not often the devices fault as much as the user error (or lack of user use).

Let’s also be clear that we’re still really early on in the fitness tracker and other wearable sensor technology evolution. Five more years from now I think the sensors and algorithms will be so much better than today. Although, I might be most hopeful that people will find some amazing psychological solutions that really change people’s behavior for good. The potential is there to make an enormous difference in so many people’s lives.

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August 6, 2014 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 13 million times. John also manages Healthcare IT Central and Healthcare IT Today, the leading career Health IT job board and blog. John is co-founder of InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: and .

Filed Under: Fitness Trackers  Health Care  Healthcare IT  mHealth  Mobile Health Care  Wearables
Tags:  Jawbone Up    Today Show