Author Archive
Apple’s success as enterprise solution in the business world bodes well for healthcare
One of the issues we’ve discussed previously is that, when it comes to iPhone and iPad acceptance in healthcare, compatibility with the more traditional enterprise solutions could turn out to be a problem for large scale adoption of iOS 4 devices.
There was a fair amount of concern that the iPhone and iPad, as consumer electronics, would lack the necessary business-oriented features to ever be widely adopted by corporate America, let alone healthcare.
However, a recent article in the Wall Street Journal suggests that Apple may be making major inroads when it comes to adoption as a business-wide mobile solution and this time with the blessing of corporate IT.
Intel and GE are forming jointly owned company to continue collaboration in home health
Hospital medicine is a tricky business and I have learned one of its most counter-intuitive lessons early in my training – our goal is ultimately to keep people as far away from us as possible.
And as the the baby-boomer generation enters its golden years, how we meet this challenge will be one the most important metrics for the effectiveness of our healthcare system.
Millions of tech-savvy Americans will soon demand services that enable them to live independently with chronic illnesses.
And a new joint venture between Intel and General Electric, the latter of which is already a major healthcare tech player, seeks to provide precisely these services.
Could iPhone Pedometers Help Patients Lose Weight and Lower Blood Pressure?
I probably don’t need to quote statistics or share anecdotes to convince you that weight loss and blood pressure control are critical goals not only for patients individually but also for the general health and welfare the entire nation. So when I came across a meta-analysis published in JAMA in 2007 suggesting that a simple pedometer could help patients achieve both, I was intrigued. There are a lot of studies out there about different interventions, pharmacological and lifestyle, that can achieve fairly dramatic results. But this one seems to utilize a device that millions of people now carry in their pockets.
Tele-Medicine Enters Ethically Questionable Territory in the United Kingdom
Telemedicine is taking off. The ability to provide specialist consultations in remote areas via videoconference, access nurse or physician phone lines 24/7, and even have medical device data automatically pushes alerts to a physician’s iPhone about potentially dangerous cardiac rhythms – these capabilities showcase some of the best of what telemedicine has to offer. Recently, Maria Cheng of the Associated Press described how this technology may be pushing the boundaries though, entering territory that I consider morally ambiguous at best.
Real-Time Glucose Monitoring in Diabetes – Mobile Tech That’s Making a Difference
Insulin management is a nightmare. As a physician, even I have trouble sorting out how much short-acting and long-acting a patient needs through the day – what dose sliding scale to choose, how to adjust from Insulin Aspart to Lantus, how to pick the dose of insulin for the current blood sugar and anticipated meal. It’s tough. Fortunately, it’s my job and I have great support in the form of an EMR, endocrinologists, and others to help me whenever I need it. So for my patients, I can only imagine the daunting task they face on a day-to-day basis.
The First Native iPad Electronic Health Record – An Interview with the Dr. Chronos EMR Development Team
The American healthcare system is finally on the road to a modern national IT infrastructure. Recently, the iMedicalApps team had the opportunity to speak to a small but ambitious group of IT professionals who aim to be at the forefront of this modernization by targeting the physicians with the lowest penetration of electronic health records, those in smaller private practices.
The web-based EHR put forth by the team at Dr. Chronos, as well as other vendors whom we have spoken about previously, directly addresses many of the barriers to adoption in this physician demographic.
One particularly interesting development is that Dr. Chronos, a relatively new web-based electronic health record vendor targeting smaller private practices, has now decided to embrace the iPad as their mobile health solution.
We received a comprehensive demo of the native app for the iPad, including upcoming features, as well as a look at the healthcare IT landscape from the perspective of CEO/Co-Founder Michael Nusimow and COO Daniel Kivatinos.
Acne “treatment” apps could be taking advantage of patients
Getting a new medication or medical device approved in the United States requires embarking on path so nightmarish it makes Dante’s Inferno look like the yellow brick road. And while most clinicians and bureaucrats would agree that we need to find a better way, its not hard to imagine how we ended up with such a complex regulatory structure. Going back over 2,000 years to the Hippocratic Oath, the practice of medicine has rested largely on two principles – beneficence and non-maleficence. The latter refers to the idea that we, as clinicians, first do no harm while the former requires that we act foremost in the best interest of the patient. In attempting to uphold these principles, we have created an enormous regulatory structure intended to act as a sieve allowing only those interventions of proven benefit to reach the general public.
I don’t claim its anywhere close to a perfect system. And as there are enormous amounts of money at stake, often involving a very vulnerable group of people, its our responsibility to stay vigilant against those who attempt to manipulate the system as well as treatments that are of questionable value. And there are a small group of app developers whose apps may fall into the latter category with claims to treat acne with light – well, that is unless a patient is willing to hold their iPhone to their face for the next 100 years.
Voice controlled electronic health records – Nuance could make it happen
As part of our coverage of HIMSS 2010, we had the opportunity to check out a series of apps being introduced by Nuance Communications. Physicians who are familiar with Nuance generally know them as a company that provides dictation services. What many physicians may not know is that Nuance has some of the most advanced speech recognition technology on the market and ambitions that go well beyond transcribing dictation summaries and clinic visits.
In Atlanta, they announced Medical Mobile Search and Medical Mobile Recorder, in addition to the Dragon Medical Mobile dictation iPhone app. These two apps were essentially voice-enabled search, with the former searching a variety of medical databases for reference information and the latter searching previous recordings for patient names. What these apps tell us is that Nuance’s aim is to move beyond clicks and taps, and allow users to interact with computers through voice. And a recent announcement from Nuance and T-Mobile suggests that Nuance could be bringing much more to the medical world.
How Apple’s Position on Flash Could Turn Many Medical Professionals Back to Android
Storm clouds continue to gather in the Apple-Adobe feud over Flash and recent reports suggest it could get even worse. Reports are surfacing that they Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission are in discussions over opening an inquiry into the recent changes to the iPhone OS developer license agreement. As we discussed previously, these changes basically kill Flash on the iPhone OS, thus including both the iPhone and iPad. We’ve talked previously about our excitement over the numerous emerging web-based electronic health records such as CareCloud and Practice Fusion. With news from Adobe of plans to include a “Packager for iPhone” in the latest development kit, we were definitely excited that these electronic health records would be ready to go on the iPad. But it looks like those dreams have ended.
As the folks over at PC World are quick to point out, we are right now in the “rumor” stage that an inquiry – not a full scale investigation – may occur. Even so, Apple’s legal team is certainly revving up for a fight. But, at least when it comes to medicine, this is a fight they may be better of losing.
