This article is part of our HIMSS 2010 coverage. It includes a brief review of the iPhone medical app from Logial Images – Visual Dx Mobile – and a conversation with Dr. Art Papier, Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Office of Logical Images.
Although an unimaginable array of technology was demonstrated in the hangar-like exhibition spaces at HIMSS, one of the most impressive uses of technology from a physician’s perspective was in a small booth in far off corner. In it, the voluble and passionate co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Logical Images (www.logicalimages.com), Dr. Art Papier demonstrated a web and mobile based application that magically produces a sequence of high quality diagnostic images in response to user queries. Since Dr. Papier is Associate Professor of Dermatology at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, the application was originally dedicated to presenting high-quality images of dermatologic conditions. (read more)
This article is part of our HIMSS 2010 coverage. It includes an overview of the MacPractice EHR and its iPhone interface as well as a conversation with Mark Hollis, CEO of MacPractice.
One of the key’s to Apple’s success has been the reliable, simple, and fun UI it has designed for every one of its products. Part of the reason that this feature has stood out is because the Microsoft-based PC world has become known for essentially the opposite. The same is true for many electronic health record platforms built for Windows, where the same security vulnerabilities, networking complexity, and famed “blue screen of death” plague the slightly-less-than-tech-savvy average physician. For this reason, Mark Hollis – CEO of MacPractice – offers a system that runs entirely on the Mac. I had the opportunity to check out the iPhone platform tied to this EHR and also to chat with Mr. Hollis about his vision for this platform and some of the challenges it faces.
The iPhone Platform – From the start, the interface looks pretty slick. There are a number of different functions built in including a calendar of appointments, patient contact information (with a simple touch allowing you to call or email them), charge capture, patient prescription history, and referral management. (read more)
In this video we check out two of the Dragon Medical Mobile Apps (releasing later this year) for the iPhone, Dragon Medical Mobile Dictation and Medical Mobile Search. We recorded this video from Nuance’s booth at the HIMSS conference
Nuance, the makers of Dragon Medical Dictation, a favorite dictation service among many physicians, announced at HIMSS they are bringing the same medical transcription service to the iPhone.
Many readers may have noticed the recent arrival of a free Nuance “Dragon” app in the App store. This simple app allows the user to speak directly into the iPhone and receive a nicely transcribed text document 15-30 seconds later, ready for email or for copy and paste.
At that time, Nuance did not specify their future intentions, but many speculated a medical version would be forthcoming. Indeed, at HIMSS, Nuance announced three new iPhone medical apps: Mobile Dictation, Mobile Search, and Mobile Recorder, all named with the prefix Dragon Medical (i.e. “Dragon Medical Mobile Dictation”, etc). (read more)
This is part of iMedicalApps coverage of the HIMSS 2010 Conference in Atlanta, Georgia
Zynx Health was founded in 1994 by three physicians at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Their original mission, unchanged from that time, says Carina Edwards, Vice President of Marketing and Product Management, is to improve patient care and decrease costs. The challenge for physicians, then as now, is utilizing evidence based medicine in day-to-day patient care. While physicians can always search the primary literature or use a database of evidence-based clinical guidelines such as Up-To-Date or Cochrane’s, having recommendations at the critical moment of writing orders is invaluable. (read more)
I interviewed Robert Quinn, Senior Vice President of Engineering and CTO of Epocrates at HIMSS 2010, and he spoke candidly about the many features Epocrates electronic health record will have, especially related to the iPhone.
Yes, that’s correct. Epocrates, the mobile medical app that nearly has the distinction of being the one “indispensable” application for every physician’s smart phone, is going to have a big brother soon.
The ten year old company, based in San Mateo California, believes its base of more than 900,000 clinicians worldwide and its experience with mobile medical development gives it the wherewithal for understanding what physicians need and expect from a mobile Electronic Health Record (EHR).
They are targeting solo and small physician practices and with a price point that is expected to be very competitive. “This was a logical next step for Epocrates,” said Rose Crane, chief executive officer of Epocrates, when making the announcement.
Integration with the iPhone
I had the opportunity to speak with Robert Quinn, Senior Vice President of Engineering and Chief Technical Officer about the forthcoming product. They are planning a shipping target of Fall 2010. The product will have both a mobile iPhone app and web interface. They plan on integrating the features of the iPhone, such as the camera, as well as dictation directly into the app, an interesting feature especially in light of the announcement today by Nuance that they will be shipping a medical transcription application for the iPhone. (read more)
This is part of iMedicalApps coverage of the HIMSS 2010 Conference in Atlanta, Georgia
A common cause of annoyance for patients is filling out the same forms over and over again. While just about every adult has experienced this issue, the deeper problem is a single patient will almost always have more than one physician or caregiver. This means the repetitive form filling is really the tip of a much more serious problem of data in silos, with each physician and hospital treating the patient from scratch, exchanging information via faxed notes or (mostly missed) phone calls.
Patient Case Example:
Take the simple example of a female middle aged patient who suddenly experiences chest pain after dinner one night. She goes to the nearest emergency room and has a rapid and extensive evaluation. Let’s say the results did not point to a heart attack, but there were indeed some abnormalities on the ECG. The patient ends up being discharged home with the ED physician writing gastroesopheageal reflux as a possible cause, and instructing the patient to follow up with a cardiologist and their primary care physician. The next morning the patient will call the cardiologist and show up in his office that afternoon. In their hand is…..nothing, but they do remember the abnormal ECG they had in the ED. (read more)
This is part of iMedicalApps coverage of the HIMSS 2010 Conference in Atlanta, Georgia
One of the numerous sessions today was a lunch hour “town hall” on the current status of CCHIT certification. This is one of many acronyms populating the language of health IT folks, especially recently, and stands for Certification Commission for Health Information Technology. This organization is a nonprofit, 501(c)3 organization with “the public mission of accelerating the adoption of health IT”.
Today’s presentation was headed by Mark Leavitt, MD, PhD, and the chair of the commission. He covered a large amount of ground and the presentation was followed by some pointed questions from a very educated audience, many of whom were CIOs (Chief Information Officer) or CMIOs (Chief Medical Information Officer) of hospitals.
This commission wields immense power over the future of health information systems by deciding what features of EMR are vital and the standards for interoperability between health IT systems. They will have a leading voice in what the CMS (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) will deem to represent “meaningful use” and thus qualify physicians and hospitals for a piece of the large pot of stimulus money that is being dangled in front of providers to stimulate EHR adoption. (read more)
We’re live here in Atlanta, Georgia, at the HIMSS conference. This week we’ll be bringing relevant posts and interviews related to the conference in breaking news fashion.
The 2010 HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) conference is now underway in Atlanta in what promises to be a signal year in the world of health IT. The reasons seems to be the confluence of a year long public discussion on health care reform and, very important, the provision in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), also known as the stimulus bill, that rewards physicians for meaningful adoption of a qualified electronic health record (EHR).
The reward can equal as much as $44,000 over 5 years and is creating a frenzy of vendors asserting that their EHR is certified, meanwhile the community at large is breathlessly awaiting to hear what the government regards as “meaningful use”. The final rules on meaningful use are expected later this year. Partially, as a result this, HIMSS found in its annual survey of its leadership: (read more)
It’s fair to say almost everyone has bought at least one accessory for their iPhone. My own collection consists of two items, a simple protective case, and protective case with a built in battery. I can’t emphasize how crucial my battery case has been, especially when I hit the 20th hour of a 30 hour on call shift and my iPhone’s native battery is about to die.
The Wall Street Journal recently reported on the development of iPad accessories, and how companies such as Griffin, Gelaskins, Sanho, and others are scrambling to manufacture products as fast as possible. Time is money in the accessory business, and the iPod/iPhone accessory business is big money — totaling 3.7 billion in 2009 alone.
Medical app developers have already mentioned how they will be customizing their products for the iPad. Epocrates and Macpractice are examples of two significant players who have already committed to the iPad platform — and there are more.
With that said, there’s no doubt some health care professionals will be using an iPad, whether for reading medical books or for EMR purposes. So then two key questions come to mind: What accessories do we want to see and whats already out there? The following are 5 key accessories: (read more)
We are excited to announce that the iMedicalApps team will be covering HIMSS 2010 in Atlanta, Georgia next week. HIMSS – Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society – is one of the premier healthcare IT organizations and there conference is a perennial highlight of the HIT community.
The iMedicalApps team will be covering the exhibition floor where vendors ranging from Epic Systems and MacPractice – both EMR vendors with iPhone/iPad interfaces – to Philips and Northrop Grunman, who bring an incredibly diverse array of healthcare IT services to the market.
In addition, we will be interviewing a number of executives from a variety of firms. We will bring you the latest news from the healthcare IT world, with a focus on innovations in applications for mobile platforms. If you have any particular vendors you’d like to know more about, please let us know and we’ll do our best to fit it in.
Health care professionals have been patiently waiting for the expansion of the Android universe to hit the world of medical apps. With the exception of Unbound Medicine – who have done a very nice job in rolling their products into the Android Market – users of Android mobile devices have thus far been relegated mostly to the world of medical calculators and dictionaries. For Android owners, the release of Epocrates could not have come sooner. If you are in the field of medicine, you are probably familiar with Epocrates. We reviewed Epocrates on the iPhone before. And for health care professionals and students, Epocrates, honestly, needs no introduction. From the short-white-coat student to the tech-savvy clinician, Epocrates has, for years, been an essential tool in refreshing those synapses you made in pharmacology class (or didn’t make). The field of pharmacology is ever changing. Epocrates helps many of us stay on top of it all, and improve care for patients.
Keep in mind, the version of Epocrates Rx currently available and reviewed here is still in BETA. So many of the richer features available on other platforms are still missing for Android. Also, one of the difficulties in reviewing any app for Android is the potential for variability in user experience between OS versions, and from phone to phone. This review is based on the HTC MyTouch, which runs on Android OS v1.6.
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Emergency rooms are notorious for their long waiting times – that’s pretty common knowledge. But now the Hospitals of Central Connecticut are looking to a new medical app for the iPhone to help improve their emergency room wait times. Having spent a fair amount of time recently working in an emergency room, I (and probably everyone with similar experiences) can assure you that no one – physicians, nurses, administrators – want it to be that way. Much effort has been made in improving patient triage, workflow management, and other areas of opportunity that could increase the efficiency with which a patient is managed when they get to the emergency room. Some emergency rooms, like Hospital of Central Connecticut, are now looking to improve efficiency even before the patient arrives at the emergency room. The New Britain Herald reports that a new medical app released for the iPhone this week allows patients to view waiting times for the emergency rooms at two local hospitals in the hopes that patients with non-emergent complaints will head to the less crowded ER.
(read more)
