dstreetrx's blog

101 Things you can do with a Mobile Phone

Apple is known for the commercial for the iPhone stating “there’s an app for that”. The list of applications for all mobile phones, especially smartphones continues to grow dramatically. Here’s an interesting list from www.mobilehealthcrowd.com .

The management of patient with diabetes continues to be a challenge. However, a new device, the MyGlucoHealth meter was developed to increase direct doctor/patient communication as well as promote regular testing by diabetic patients. The new device connects wirelessly to a mobile phone using Bluetooth technology to manage blood glucose testing information and communicate results to the MyGlucoHealth www.myglucohealth.net online portal.

This product is very helpful but by no means that last that will develop such technology for the management but diabetes. Another news item that caught my attention is that the health insurers Aetna and Cigna have announced that they will pay for online physician visits and patients will be required to contribute a co-payment for the visits.

. http://www.ihealthbeat.org/articles/2008/3/31/Insurers-Begin-To-Reimburs...

Health insurers reimburse less for the online visit than a regular office visit, however since the physician will be reimbursed for this activity they may have an incentive to change the scope and direction of their practice.

Doctors + iPhone = better healthcare (March 18, 2008 – Manufacturing & Logistics IT) http://www.logisticsit.com/absolutenm/templates/article-mobile.aspx?arti.... New advances in medicine and ancillary care have made it nearly impossible to stay up-to-date. According to a 2004 Rand Corporation study, research and provider knowledge deficits have led to significant divergence between recommended care and what patients actually received. Patients received recommended (or evidence based) care about half the time.

Much has been said about the applications that are available for the iPhone, currently there are over 400 medical applications available on the itunes site. Additionally, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile or Symbian–powered hand sets have medical applications that make them very useful to pharmacists and other healthcare professionals. One example of medical programs that are available are drug reference programs. Here’s a brief introduction to three of these programs:

Epocrates (www.epocrates.com) – the program is a drug and formulary reference guide, it contains a selection of med tools, CME and a mobile resource center are available. The program is available for the Palm OS, BlackBerry, iPhone, Windows Mobile and Win Smartphone. The program Epocrates Rx is available as a free download, while other products which include other tools are available on a subscription basis.

Pepid (www.pepid.com) – contains a drug database, medical calculator, IV compatibility tool and other items. This program is available for Windows OS, Palm OS, Apple OS X and BlackBerry. The program is available on a subscription basis.

Tarascon (www.tarascon.com) – provide drug information, interaction checking, and an herbal and alternative therapy section. This program is available for Palm OS, Windows Mobile and BlackBerry. The program is available on a subscription basis

“Your Next Computer” was the feature article in the October 8, 2008 issue of InformationWeek (www.informationweek.com). This article dealt with the question, “Is the smartphone the new laptop? Can we really ditch our Windows-powered portables when we travel, in favor of BlackBerry, iPhone, Windows Mobile or Symbian–powered hand sets?”

Many business professionals are exploring the option of leaving their laptop at home when they travel. If they can lighten their load and still access their company data, customer relationship software and other tools that are needed by the business professional, why not?

If business professionals can use smartphones as tools to increase their time spent with customers, then surely we in healthcare can find a way to help maximize our time and efficiency with our patients. One example of an institution that is way ahead of the technology curve is Doylestown Hospital, a community medical center located near Philadelphia.

The hospitals web site discusses their transition to the use of a smartphone by their physicians in order to gain “access to patient’s vital stats, medical reference applications, and breaking health alerts to provide collaborative and efficient patient care.” The iPhone (www.apple.com/iphone/enterprise/doylestown.html) allowed the physician staff access to the hospital’s electronic medical record system (MEDITECH Client Server 6.0) through the Safari browser, which required secure authentication and provided audit-trail security.