By Tim Bredrup

Kony Solutions, the leading mobile application platform provider, recently announced that Intermountain Healthcare has selected Kony as its mobile application platform. Kony’s Write Once, Run Everywhere technology enables mobile deployment across more than 9,000 mobile smartphones/tablets/kiosks and operating systems, allowing Intermountain to offer its providers and patients brand‐consistent, robust mobile solutions, regardless of the device they use.

press release | www.kony.com

One major contributing factor to the skyrocketing cost of health care in the US is the high rate of readmission among patients.

A recent Dartmouth Atlas Project report found that 2009 30-day surgical readmission rates were 12.9 percent, unchanged from 2004, while 30-day medical readmission rates rose to 16.1 percent in 2009 from 15.9 percent in 2004.

The study also found that patients failed to see a primary care physician within two weeks of discharge, a step that can often help avoid readmission and improve outcomes.

Pipette (@usepipette) is using mobile technology to try and address this problem and enable clinicians to keep close tabs on their patients during the critical 30-day period following discharge from inpatient setting. Their mobile application suite, which covers 100 percent of mobile devices using a variety of SMS, native apps and web apps, enables clinicians to passively capture crucial patient feedback regarding their day-to-day recovery.

The goal behind Pipette’s platform is to provide payers and providers a system that reduces costs, improves patient care and enables a reliable and effective method for improving patient compliance and outcomes. The best word to describe the company’s platform is “empowering”, both patients and clinicians, to take control of the recovery process.

Pipette was a member of the first class of startups at the Rock Health incubator and one of the few in that group with a clinical orientation. Co-founders Ryan Panchadsaram (@rypan) and Jimmy Do (@jimmydo) saw a clear opportunity to disrupt healthcare and together left their jobs at Microsoft and jumped into the startup scene of Silicon Valley.

I believe there is tremendous value in developing mobile applications that passively collect crucial, context-specific patient data that is otherwise only recorded in clinical settings, so I was thrilled to have a chance to speak with Ryan and hear his vision for Pipette.

See my conversation with Ryan below:

BTE: What is the inspiration behind Pipette? What exactly is the technology you guys offer?

Ryan: The inspiration for Pipette comes from what is lacking in the healthcare system today. When a patient gets discharged from a hospital the care team has no idea of what is happening with that patient when they are at home, no clue if they are actually making progress toward recovery. What we wanted to do was build tools that would empower a patient during their recovery and enable care teams to see how a patient is recovering.

We entered the Rock Health program back in June with an idea and a small prototype of it and we were able to iterate on that idea and build a product over the last five months. The Rock Health partners helped us understand what the pain points were and how to approach the space. What we ultimately created is a platform to monitor a patient post-discharge that coaches a patient in the right direction and if things go wrong with the recovery we are able to notify the care team.

BTE: So these are apps you guys are developing?

Ryan: You can think of them as apps because they run on a patient’s phone, but our technology is special because it runs across all platforms including iOS, Android, laptops, desktops, SMS and we have spent a good amount of time making sure we can reach as many devices as possible. We learned pretty quickly that if you just build for one platform its not sufficient for healthcare. When you build a health solution, you need to reach the majority of the patient population.

BTE: So what are the next steps for you coming out of the Rock Health program? Do you plan to stay out in the Bay Area?

Ryan: The next step for us is kicking off these pilots. It’s an exciting time for us because we’ll be actively working with a few of the Rock Health partners to trial, iterate, and improve our product. Essentially, we get to act like a consumer startup in healthcare, which is incredibly rare. My co-founder and I will be staying in the Bay Area. We were living here before we started Pipette when we worked at Microsoft in Mountain View, so we will definitely be staying around here.

BTE: So do you guys just collect patient information about pain thresholds or do you collect other patient data as well?

Ryan: We try to collect all of the information necessary to make the patient’s next doctor visit more meaningful and we also try to take that information and use our technology to predict valuable things on the hospital side. For instance, we can tell the hospital which six patients need attention now, then we tell them the five who, if they have time, they should call and check up on because they are not going in the right direction. So there is a lot of information that goes into our technology, it’s not simply a data collection tool, there is an intelligence element to it.

BTE: You mentioned earlier that you had one idea in terms of who would pay for your product going into the Rock Health program and ended up learning you needed to take a different approach. What helped to help you learn that lesson?

Ryan: Going into it we thought doctors and hospitals would be our primary customer. We assumed they would jump at the opportunity to better communicate with their patients, I mean, why wouldn’t a hospital want to provide a higher level of care? During the first couple months of the program we had a chance to talk to mentors, as well as conduct a series of interviews and we started pitching it as a communication tool between doctors and patients and it wasn’t getting the doctors excited, it wasn’t getting the administrators excited. They were like, ‘well, we don’t want to introduce more forms of communication because there are other channels for it, why would we want to add this extra burden?’

Through that understanding we had to reassess what problem we were actually trying to solve. We determined it wasn’t really a communication problem but rather we were solving for this event that happens, or the complication that happens. We realized that the people who felt the impact of these complications the most was the payer group as well as the consumer, the patient themselves, since they are the ones who actually feel the pain and have to be readmitted to the hospital. So just being able to have a bouncing board and being able to iterate our pitch in these early days of the Rock Health program helped us create the offering we have today.

BTE: So that is a big part of the value proposition of the Rock Health program, giving you access to all of the people you need to talk to while you work through your business model?

Ryan: Right, and knowing we were wrong in the first week in the program was invaluable! Every decision we have made while developing our product was the result of feedback we received from those early conversations and interviews. We were really able to identify specifically what problems needed to be solved.

I would encourage future Rock Health companies to take a step back in the first month when they are here and really question what they are doing and the fundamentals behind it. When you enter a three month program, you are running full speed the whole time and don’t really get that extra time you need to question what you are doing. The fact that Rock Health has a five-month program allows you to get that time and really do that self-assessment.

Mobile technology is helping to enable small medical practices to realize efficiencies in ways that were previously unknown.

This has been embraced by First Choice Home Health & Hospice of Utah who estimates that they save more than $500,000 annually.

First Choice Home Health and Hospice was first established in Utah on January 1996. Since then, they have grown to support approximately 400 patients in four counties, through a network of about 170 employees (most of them remote clinicians).

The organization discovered that they could save money because their clinical staff was logging up to 2,500 miles per year in mileage– just to come into the main office to file paperwork. This needless amount of traveling was costing First Choice  thousands of dollars and tablet computers and notebooks were not an ideal solution. First Choice needed a software application that allowed them to file paperwork fast, electronically and on the go.

To solve this problem, they worked with Allscripts to develop the specific software. Allscripts is one of the largest companies focused on healthcare information technology, with over 5,500 employees and revenues of approximately $1.2 billion. Their products include an electronic health record as well as various other healthcare related software.

Interestingly, the fastest way for clinical staff out in the field to file the paperwork using the Allscripts software was through their Windows Phones. Beau Sorenson, CFO of First Choice Home Health & Hospice of Utah, explains the choice.

“Computers felt like a barrier to the patient. It didn’t feel like a good patient/clinician connection. So we ended up working with Allscripts to find a device that supported the application.”

The results are promising. Since the beta version of the software app was implemented a year ago, Sorenson said First Choice cut the time to get Medicare reimbursements from 90 days to 45 days. Employee travel time has been reduced by 70% since there is less miles traveled to and from the office to file paperwork. The organization also reports a 17 percent increase in clinician productivity, meaning that they can see more patients with the time they are cutting out in administrative duties.

Sorenson gave some valuable mobile healthcare tips to the author of the article, which are reproduced below.

• Keep it simple. Sometimes the most advanced technology solution isn’t the best one. While First Choice Home Health & Hospice of Utah initially tried laptops for the Allscripts software, it got in the way of the patient-caregiver connection. Plus, the wireless network required for transmission wasn’t always reliable, although it was fast.
• Get executives involved. Sorenson, who lived in Japan for several years, said the plan for the mobile technology was discussed among managers internally for some time before deciding to proceed. By making line-of-business executives part of the decision, the technology was adopted more readily. “The most important thing is to make sure everyone is on the same page,” he said.
• Use early adopters as evangelists. Within your organization, there are likely to be some who are more enthusiastic than most about the new technology. Use them to help train and help others incorpore these tools into business processes.
• Make the transition quick. Initially, First Choice Home Health & Hospice of Utah moved just some of its caregivers to the electronics filing process. This resulted in a solution that was harder to support than the original way. “As a result, we didn’t realize the savings the way we could have,” Sorenson said. “Try to do it all at once wherever possible.”

Source: ZDNet

Medical information tailored towards consumers continues to be a growing field, and medical applications for smartphones are no exception, as can be evidenced by our previous reviews.

Drugs.com is a comprehensive and popular website devoted to providing updated information on medications, for free. Now they are trying to transition their informative website into apps.

They have two versions: Drug Guide for Consumers and Drug Guide for Healthcare Professionals. The apps are for the iOS platform, and here we review the Drug Guide for Consumers on the iPad.

So does this app fill a patient need, at least one important enough to justify an annual subscription fee?

The app’s interface is simple and clean. The home screen exemplifies that, and presents a search bar, along with FDA MedWatch Alerts to help keep consumers up-to-date.

The content is all within the app, so there is no need for an active internet connection to use the app. With updates occurring once a month, the guide does remain fairly well updated. The apps can be viewed in search, by individual drug, medications for medical conditions, and by drug class. The drug details presented are similar to the information presented on the website, or in the prescription insert.

The Medwatch alerts show a preview of the new FDA warning. Clicking on the full text sends a link to the drug.com website with the full text of the warnings.

As the website’s goal is to provide updated and comprehensive information about medications to consumers, the app also manages to meet that goal by inclusion of simple pharmacology explanations, indications/contraindications, and side effect profiles.

However, the app does not even contain the multitude of features that can be accessed from the website free-of-charge. The app’s benefit of being able to access the information without an active internet connection appears to be the basis for the pricing model. The app is updated on a monthly basis, while the website is continually updated even with news stories and MedWatch Alerts.

Here is an example of the app in landscape mode, again demonstrating its nice, clean user interface.

As anyone can imagine, this app should not replace actual medical advice and all patients should consult their physicians for concerns and questions regarding their medications. That being said, empowering patients with enough knowledge to understand and manage their health is important and this app can clearly do that.

But is there a need for a mobile app, particularly one which requires a subscription. Patients are certainly not going to access this type of information frequently – they are likely to only need it when a new medication is being started (or suggested) which is hopefully not all that often. So it seems unlikely that they would need to commit to paying this premium for mobility, which it isn’t all that clear is useful to them.

Prices:

• $24.99 for the consumer version
• $39.99 for healthcare professional version (not reviewed here)
• Both pricing schemes are for one-year subscriptions only

Likes:

• Easy-to-use and simple format
• Comprehensive guide with basic information quickly accessible
• Medwatch alerts

Dislikes:

• True to their calling, there is limited information on disease states
• Compared to the website, the variety of information presented is limited
• Updated per month (which seems slow) in the realm of medical news and information

Conclusion:

• While the app we reviewed is a solid product, it would be really difficult to encourage subscribing to these plans for a patient.

Find the app on iTunes here.

by: Dr. Ravi Nerella, MBBS, MD

Currently, there are not many EHR’s that provide full or extensive integration of real time patient wave forms and related data natively into the chart that allow physicians or others on the care team the ability to view cardiac rhythms, fetal monitoring, etc.

If a physician is on call or does not have access to a computer, they have to depend on the interpretation of the waveform by the caregiver to make a clinical decision. This can be complicated by the experience of the caregiver who is interpreting the data, which can then lead to potential delays in care or unnecessary investigations for the patient.

EHR vendors are in the process of optimizing their products to allow integration of patient waveforms with access through the patient’s chart — but the likelihood of this coming to a EHR near you is at least 2-3 years away at this time.

Even in the event this becomes available, it does not address the issue of allowing physicians the ability to view this form of data when they are outside the hospital. The ability to view patient waveform data in the mobile setting is an invaluable asset to be able to provide excellent patient care that is expected in this day and age with cutting edge technology.

AirStrip Technologies has stepped in to bring a mobile solution that provides physicians the ability to view and interact with real time wave form data that sometimes is essential to provide appropriate patient care. AirStrip, with their apps for most mobile devices, provides a solution for this current gap in patient care. They have created three apps that allow for care in three critical areas of patient care, the ICU’s, potential ACS patients and potential high risk obstetric patient’s with fetal monitoring. Below we briefly describe their products. Reviews over all their offerings are forthcoming.

AirStrip Patient Monitoring provides physicians the ability to view relevant clinical data regarding patient’s in intensive care settings in an easy to use interface. The app allows integration with current monitoring systems through an interface. The apps currently have the ability to view vitals, infusions, active medications, allergies, Intake & Output and laboratory data to be viewed from within the app.

AirStrip Cardiology provides cardiologists and other physicians the ability to view EKG’s done in the ED or in the field by EMS and help them determine if a patient truly has a STEMI and facilitate improved patient care. This will allow for appropriate cath lab activations and hopefully decrease unnecessary cath lab activations. It also allows the physicians to compare old EKGs for possible new changes.

AirStrip OB provides access to fetal tracings for obstetricians similar to what the Cardiology app provides and was recently reviewed by the iMedicalApps team. We will keep you posted on further developments with Airstrip Technologies.

by Dr. Ravi Nerella, MBBS, MD

AirStrip OB provides obstetricians a mobile platform to view fetal monitoring in real time and gives them the ability to make critical decisions regarding the plan of care in potential high risk obstetric patients.

The user is presented with a secure login screen on launching the app (the login is configurable). Once logged in, the user is presented with a list of patients organized by unit.

The patient list gives the user relevant information, like whether the membranes are intact or ruptured, the gravida and para of the patient or whether the patient had an epidural placed.

Additionally, Airstrip OB gives information concerning the room number, attending physician and nurse caring for the patient in a concise and easy format.

On the left of this screenshot, beside each patient’s name, is a color coded dot.

• A white or clear dot indicates the patient has delivered (it could also indicate that this information has not been documented) which allows physicians to quickly prioritize patient’s to be evaluated.
• Grey indicates patient is 1-4 cm dilated
• Yellow indicates the patient is 5-7 cm dilated
• Red indicates patient is 8-10 cm dilated

On the far right is a waveform icon that takes the user directly to the fetal strip tracing in real time.

Subsequently when the patient’s “chart” is opened, the user can review the patient’s recent exam documented by the nurse, vitals, notes, Pitocin rate and other relevant information.

The fetal tracings can be viewed either in portrait or landscape mode. In portrait mode, the user is presented with controls to scroll through the beginning of the tracing, or “fast forward” or “fast backward” through the tracing.

The user can also swipe through the tracing to navigate to a specific time period on the tracing. In landscape mode, only the patient’s name, location and fetal tracing is presented giving the user a less distracting view.

When navigating through the tracing, the user is able to see a time stamp of the tracing and is able to determine when changes in the tracing occurred in context to the timeline.

Navigation through the app can only be done in portrait mode with a simple back button that takes the user to previous screens.

The app has a simple user interface and is very responsive and easy to use. The app has a polished feel and the user has a great experience using the app. The app is well laid out and well designed.

Price:

• Free to download (requires Airstrip OB system in hospital)

Likes:

• Secure login
• Quick access to fetal tracing
• Ability to scroll through tracing with time stamp
• Relevant information presented in easy to read format
• Color coding to quickly determine patient’s cervical dilation

Dislikes:

• No legend for users to understand color coding within the app
• No iPad app (still in development)

Conclusion:

• AirStrip OB is an excellent tool that gives obstetricians the ability to proactively monitor potential high risk pregnancies and be able to make quicker decisions regarding care and prevent adverse outcomes to mother and baby.
• It also provides the opportunity for the refinement of tele-obstetrics.

iTunes Link

by: Matthew DiPaola, MD

Dr. DiPaola is an orthopedic surgeon who specializes in shoulder and elbow disease. We appreciated his contribution to iMedicalApps.

The Shoulderdoc app is the accompanying app to Shoulderdoc. This website is every shoulder surgeon’s guilty pleasure. It contains more information on shoulder surgery and treatments than one can find in one place on the web.

Shoulderdoc is the brainchild of Dr. Leonard Funk, a specialist shoulder surgeon in the UK. Dr. Funk has spent the last decade feeding his main website with a plethora of useful shoulder related content. I like the concept of having a “go to” shoulder site where I can quickly find all of the latest feeds of articles, patient education topics and latest trends. I’ve always found the site to be updated frequently, the content to be good and referenced well. I do have a few hang-ups about the site, though.

The site has a ton of information but it’s a bit crowded, full of ads and sometimes hard to navigate. Also, some of the menu text is in orange print which is difficult to read. So is the app just a mini shoulderdoc website? The answer is no.

The layout of the mobile app is smooth and easy to read – light orange and white backgrounds with black lettering for the most part. Unlike the main website, the app’s main audience is patients. Put simply, the app condenses a host of patient education materials found on the main website in a manner that makes it quick easy to access. If you are a surgeon, you may be a bit bored with the app.

You won’t find the latest RSS feeds from the main shoulder and sports medicine journals or detailed classification systems in the app. These are things that I like about the main site. But then again, I am (usually) not a patient.

I trialed the app on the iOS platform – iPad and iPhone. The bottom menu contains 5 categories “topics, diagnose, your surgery, videos and a brief about us” page. The “Topics” tab at the bottom left is a repository of about 30 different shoulder conditions.

Topics range from rotator cuff tear, biceps problems, and calcific tendonitis, to injections, labral tears and nerve disorders. You will typically encounter a second menu of more specific categories of the main topic after you click on one from the main menu.

For example, when you click on AC Joint Problems you encounter a submenu of: AC joint, AC Joint Osteolysis, ACJ Arthritis and ACJ Dislocations. Clicking on one of these subheadings will then take you to a nicely laid out summary of the problem usually accompanied by a drawing to help illustrate the condition. Within the sub-menus there are usually some treatment options. So patients have a quick reference for not only the problem but some common treatments. The content seems appropriate and would likely be helpful for most patients.

The “Diagnose” tab comes up next. It links to an interesting tool that takes you through a series of questions and helps you develop a preliminary “diagnosis” of your shoulder problem. The patient completes the algorithm and is given a brief link to information about their likely problem at the end.

The disclaimer shows that this is a “rough guide” to help you find more information about your shoulder. You need a full medical exam to get an exact diagnosis.

The “Your Surgery” section answers many common questions about what one’s surgery will be like. Certainly, some of the items are tailored more toward Dr. Funk’s personal practice so it may not be completely applicable to every shoulder surgeon’s practice, but there is a lot of good general information.

At the very least, a shoulder surgeon might do well to use some of Dr. Funk’s information as a general outline to help guide patients through their experience.

“Print Booklets” took me to the “Shoulder Store” on the main web site where there were books and slings for sale (all in British Pounds). I was expecting a link to printable information packets for patients. Dr. Funk has put together a 44 pg booklet for 7.99 that covers “everything you need to know” about the process of undergoing shoulder surgery.

I have not read his book so I do not know how much of that same information is in the app. But since it looks like a lot of information is in and you can get it for free, it’s to your advantage to go digital.

The “Videos” tab take you to 2 categories labeled “shoulder animations” and “”surgery animations.” There were a series of videos in the “shoulder animations” section. The shoulder arthritis video did not play, but others did. They were about 3-5 minutes each and consisted of Dr. Funk standing in a lecture format guiding users through a series of animations on various problems.

The surgery animations were cartoonish videos that nicely illustrated some common procedures. They were easy to understand, well annotated and would likely not turn off the squeamish who may not like real videos with blood.

The “about us” tab states that all content is written by medical professionals and reviewed by Dr. Funk (and tells one how to get in touch with their clinic for a consultation).

Likes:

• Layout was simple and standardized. When you navigated through the links you knew what to expect
• Videos were concise
• Information seemed pertinent and comprehensive

Dislikes:

• Perhaps as time goes on and these app reviews get more plentiful, we’ll see small labels come up next to the app stating the appropriate audience. This app is geared more toward patients than any other audience.

My goal while attending the mHealth Summit in Washington DC this week is to understand the business models behind the companies at the forefront of this exciting emerging field.

At the top of my list of panel discussions to attend was Business Model Challenges for the Deployment of mHealth Solutions: The Provider Perspective featuring the following very influential mHealth thought leaders:

Moderator
Zia Agha - VA San Diego Healthcare Systems

Presenters
Julie Kling – Humana, Inc.
Eric Fennel – Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, CMMI
James Brehm - Compass Intelligence, LLC
Steve Heilman - Norton Healthcare

The first presenter was Julie Kling, mobile business lead at Humana, which is one of the most impressive organizations on the mHealth landscape, particularly among payer groups. Kling, the mobile business executive lead at Humana, discussed four major categories of mobile strategy inputs at Humana – customer, brand, business and trends. The company is very much focused on developing mHealth products that have a direct consumer use and benefit, particularly with regards to the specifics of their plans and coverage (i.e. copay for specific services or pharmaceuticals).

Humana has internally developed over a dozen dedicated mobile apps across numerous categories. Of all health insurance providers, Humana is by far the most innovative player in the mobile space as far as I am concerned, and their early embrace of games for health is just one example of the company’s innovative edge.

According to Kling, “eVisits” are in early stages across the US, using real-time or asynchronous services, on-demand web-based video conferencing, and usually for non-emergent questions, prescription processing and chronic disease management. Mobile technology has evolved by leaps and bounds in other industries–the healthcare industry is only just beginning to leverage it.

Next up was Eric Fennel from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation Center.  The center was established to test innovative payment and service delivery models to reduce program expenditures under Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP while preserving or enhancing the quality of care.

The program’s mission can be summed up in their Three I’s Strategy:

-Incentives – Test new care and payment models
-Improvement – Rapidly serve better care
-Ideas – Innovate and create new models

The models the Innovation Center will test require fundamental changes in the structure of healthcare delivery. Unfortunately, we did not get a chance to hear what CMS envisions these changes will look like.

Next we heard from James Brehm of Compass Intelligence, a market research firm focused on the wireless health sector. James estimated the total size of the US wireless healthcare market to be approximately $12 billion, a much larger number than I have seen anywhere else before but encouraging nonetheless.

One point Brehm made that I thought was particularly interesting was that healthcare today, like it or not, is like buying a car without knowing how much its going to cost. Its almost impossible to even imagine making such a consequential purchase without knowing the long-term costs, but I think the metaphor is apt and highlights the glaring flaws in the current delivery model.

Small practices or rural practices are characterized by older physicians who are very comfortable with their practice and don’t have a ton of interest in mobile, but are willing to learn. Many large and urban practices are the opposite, with younger more aggressive physicians who embrace mobile technology in practice.

Standards and collection of data need to be standardized and training around these new devices, services, processes and procedures is also necessary. Best practices are currently unclear to physicians and providers and will slowly be established.

Finally, Steve Heilman, CMIO at Norton Healthcare, an integrated delivery network of 5 hospitals with several hundred physicians, highlighted the fact that core infrastructure is a key challenge faced by providers, as is mobile device management, specifically the management of many devices across many platforms, a point I touch on further below.

One exciting and hopeful fact Heilman shared from his experiences as a CMIO is that telemedicine consults have proven to pay just as well as an office visit. However, its not easy to sell the infrastructure necessary to provide face-to-face telemedicine services to hospital CEOs.

Mobile technology provides market differentiation and sets an organization apart, but groups need to be prepared to manage the culture shift this engenders. When you begin offering these innovative solutions patients will come to expect them all the time, and its not always easy to consistently provide technology that is in early stages and evolving literally day-to-day.

Data ownership was raised as a critical issue. Who owns patient data? I think the consensus among panelists was clearly that patients own their data, but little was shared about what each individuals organization does to provide patients with assurance that the data belongs to them.

One particularly good question asked by an audience member was, “What proof points do you need to see before you start adopting technologies in your organization and how long does it take to make those decisions?”  To sum up the panelists responses, right now we are undergoing a culture change on the provider side. Health plans are testing these models because they want to achieve greater efficiency. If we (as providers) can provide mobile services that help us better compete you can be sure we will adopt these technologies.

Obviously, integration of all of these emerging devices is also a critical aspect of developing sustainable mHealth business models and it seemed clear that all of the panelists had experiences in this respect that proved more challenging than they maybe had anticipated.

Heilman closed his presentation by asserting “we are trying to become as device agnostic as possible, because its the wild wild west out there right now with everyone bringing their own mobile device to work”, though I got the distinct impression that this is a reluctant effort due to the expense and complexity involved with supporting hundreds of different devices. He emphasized the need for hospitals to be able to support these mobile devices, but it is no small investment to build the internal capabilities to provide such support to hundreds of different devices running various operating systems.

This is a critical point because most providers don’t mandate physicians use specific devices. Physicians are going out and buying their own mobile devices which they hope to use in practice but often times they find their hospital does not support said device.

In response to a question from an app developer about what advise the panel has for first time health app developers, Julie Kling echoed Heilman when she recommended first and foremost that companies develop device agnostic applications.

All in all, the panel was a bit disappointing since very little regarding the actual business models of the presenting organizations was actually shared. I came away from the panel with very little new knowledge. A business model to me answers one of two questions, and often times both; (1) How do we make money? and/or (2) How do we save money? Sadly, there was little to be gleaned from the speakers regarding the actual business models they have attempted to deploy, successful or not.

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (Bluetooth SIG) has announced the finalists in the 2011 Innovation World Cup. Out of nine finalists, five of which were health and fitness related products. The Innovation World Cup is an annual developer contest in which teams develop new products using Bluetooth technology. This year there were 330 submissions.

FIrst up: CoreMD, image on the left. Developed by Guilherme de Paula of Pancreum, CoreMD is a wireless communication and power infrastructure for replaceable wearable medical devices. The devices are envisioned to perform a wide variety of functions such as sense vital signs (ECG, temperature, blood pressure, fetus activity, etc), provide users biofeedback, and potentially even inject sub-cutaneously delivered drugs (insulin, glucagon, etc).The CoreMD device is reusable and runs on a coin-cell battery that can be recharged using a micro USB connector.

The other four health and fitness related products are profiled below.

CapTrack, by Daniel Corkum, Rosanna Myers, and Maura Tresch, is an innovative new system for increasing medication adherence. Their “Connected Caps” fit onto any standard prescription bottles to keep track of medication adherence and help patients make the most of their treatment regimens. Using methods very similar to Vitality GlowCaps, the Connected Caps use light and sound, as well as call users phones or send them emails to remind them to take their pills.

CapTrack also offers a web-based service which generates real-time progress reports for users, their doctors and select family members, and even calls the pharmacy to order a refill when users run low on a medication.

Monbaby, by Arturas Vaitaitis and Jung Bae Kim of Rentech, is a small sensor bracelet worn by newborn babies that measures their vital signs and relays them to multiple receivers. It is specifically designed to mitigate against the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Bracelets can be paired with a wristband worn by the parents. The wristband will then receive data being transmitted by the baby’s bracelet and function as an active remote monitor for the newborn.

The data can also be received by a centralized data aggregator, allowing nurses and doctors access to real-time vital signs in the nursery. The smartphone app and receiver devices can send alerts over multiple channels if a baby’s vital signals reach unusual or dangerous thresholds.

SoundofMotion, developed by Vlad Savchenko, has extended the traditional functionality of Bluetooth sport headphones to measure heart beats and instantly provide audible and tactile feedback to the user. Using electrically conductive earbuds, the headset will be able to measure the heart beat of users in the same way as a traditional chest belt heart rate monitor.

Unobstructed skin, natural body oils and moisture in the ear make the heart beat measurements very reliable. The dual-mode Bluetooth device will allow the headset to work as a heart rate monitor in Bluetooth low energy mode, or as a stereo audio system in classic Bluetooth mode.

Smart Weights, by Eric and Meaghan Zorij or Diesel Dogs, are simply standard weight lifting equipment with the addition of a Bluetooth low energy transceiver which provides the ability to monitor, track and log the exercises performed and automatically upload the results. For each exercise, Smart Weight can measure form and technique, number of sets, number of repetitions, resistance levels, and duration. The workout summary is seamlessly uploaded via Bluetooth low energy technology to a smart phone or Bluetooth enabled PC or smartphone.

Separate software on the phone or PC allows the retrieval of workout data, including information about form and technique used for each repetition and progress tracking, including monthly summaries and and exercise routine program design.

The overall winner in the 2010 contest was a small sensor that could be worn on a person’s ear to measure balance, body posture, activity level, and heart rate and transmit that information wirelessly to a computer, phone or other device where it could be transferred to a patient’s health care provider.

The 2011 Innovator of the Year winner will receive a $5,000 cash prize, a Bluetooth Qualification Program (QDID) voucher worth $5,000 to $10,000 as well as a Bluetooth protocol analyzer from Ellisys. The Bluetooth SIG will also help the nine finalists present their idea or prototype at three of the world’s largest trade shows; the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas (January 2012), MEDICA in Dusseldorf, Germany (November 2011), and ispo in Munich, Germany (January 2012).

Judging Criteria

Innovation

• Level of innovation (completely new idea vs. enhancements of existing solutions or transfer to new fields of application)
• Innovative combination of different technologies via Bluetooth low energy

Implementation

• Technological feasibility of implementing idea
• Exploitation of the unique features of Bluetooth low energy technology
• Potential legal/patent issues
• Potential time to market
• Required investment level

Marketability

• Commercial potential (e.g. target market, retail prize)
• Anticipated demand from end consumers
• Uniqueness in the market

by: Brittany Chan, MBA, MS3

During my psychiatry rotation, I met quite a few patients who suffered from panic attacks. For some, panic attacks come on rarely. But for others, panic attacks are frequent, debilitating occurrences that significantly diminished their quality of life.

In the most severe cases, people confine themselves in their homes in fear of having an attack in public.

People who suffer from panic attacks describe symptoms such as chest pain, rapid heartbeat, difficulty breathing, and feelings of impending doom. Often the fear accompanying these sensations can intensify the attack in a vicious cycle.

The Panic Attack Aid app, published in the UK and priced at $4.99, attempts to calm the person and help them cope during the duration of the attack. This app is compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch and was made with the help of actual panic attack sufferers; however, the creators are not medical or mental health professionals.

There are three main components to the app: breathing, reassurance, and distraction.

Breathing

Panic Attack Aid opens to the image of a slowly expanding green circle on the background of a serene blue sky with a few fluffy clouds. The circle repeatedly enlarges, turns yellow, shrinks, turns green, and enlarges again. The top of the screen instructs the user, “Try to breathe in and out in time with the circle. Say relax with every outbreath.”

Several different messages of encouragement appear in turn below the circle, such as:

•  “My harmless but frightening symptoms are fading.”
• “I am returning to a normal relaxed state.”
• “I feel awful but nothing bad can happen to me.”
• “I will get through this.”

This helps the user relax, the mesmerizing circle guides their breath, and the messages provide reassurance. This mode is calming and can help curb the feelings of intense anxiety and fear of impending death or harm.

Reassurance

The next tab, reassurance, provides comforting words to the user in paragraph form. The user can select a symptom or symptoms that are most disturbing, or choose their current location, such as an airport or a shop.

This is important because many people experience panic attacks in public places and may feel helpless or embarrassed.

After the user makes a selection, a long paragraph appears that reads as if a person is talking to the user, encouraging them and reassuring them of their safety. Each paragraph is specific to the selection, of course, but all of them end with “Remember, you are fine.”

The user is also redirected to one of the other two modes: breathing or distraction (discussed later).

Unlike the breathing and distraction modes, the reassurance mode offers no calming imagery of blue skies, simply black and white text.

This section seems like it would be effective as long as the user could concentrate enough to read the paragraph. If so, reading the reassurances would provide a great distraction from the panic attack sensations as well as comfort to the user.

Distraction

Distraction mode forces the user to use their mind and think of something other than the frightening sensations. The user is instructed to perform tasks such as:

• Look around. Can you see 3 things beginning with ‘c’?
• Think of 5 song titles by your favourite singer or band
• Count backwards in fours from 2000
• Recite the alphabet missing every other letter
• Visualize the last beach you visited

The user can easily switch distractions by swiping left or right. Like the circle in breathing mode, the distractions are displayed on a backdrop of a blue sky. There are a total of twenty different distractions.

Panic Attack Aid seems to be a helpful app for sufferers of panic attacks. People having a panic attack in public or at home can sit down with their iPhones and access coping methods quickly. The interface is intuitive and user-friendly, which is important during a time of intense anxiety.

The app encourages the user to consciously relax and allow for the symptoms of panic to pass. It has received several positive reviews on the iTunes App Store from sufferers of panic attacks.

Likes:

• Friendly user-interface
• Calming backgrounds and graphics
• Relatively simple app.

Dislikes:

• Price is a little high — functionality seems a bit too simple for $4.99
• Encouragement to seek professional help is found only in the disclaimer and vaguely mentioned in the “Useful Links.”

Overall:

• This app was made with the help of actual panic attack sufferers and seems to be helpful in coping with an acute attack
• Though the price is a little high for the simple features of the app, it is still relatively affordable
• Input from mental health or medical professionals may improve the app and provide more resources for users to seek help

iTunes

Skyscape is one of the most popular medical resource providers in the App Store. They offer a vast range of over 600 medical resources for healthcare professionals of all grades and modalities.

Skyscape offers a ‘freemium’ model, where the app itself and some content is available for free. However, more desirable premium content comes at a price. One of the most popular premium resources is Netters Atlas of Human Anatomy.

Netters is one of the most popular and best selling anatomy resources alongside other heavyweights such as Grays Anatomy, Agur, Moore’s clinical anatomy, and Thieme’s Anatomy to name just a few. Netters Atlas of Human Anatomy for iPad is based on the 5th edition and contains over 530 colour illustrations.

The user interface of Skyscape resources has always been driven by utility and functionality. Netters Atlas of Human Anatomy is no different with a text interface. There are 4 main features:

• A ‘Table of Contents’ mode
• A searchable index
• A history function (with bookmarks)
• Skyscape’s Smartlink technology designed to bring multiple Skyscape resources together.

The search and history function are effective and it was straightforward to find various anatomical areas of interest. It should be noted that the history function will also include articles viewed in other Skyscape resources (see screenshot).

The quality of any anatomy app is strongly based on the quality of its anatomical illustrations. Netter’s hand drawn diagrams are renowned and transfer to the iPads 9 inch screen with excellent results.

Some iTunes reviews suggest that the quality and resolution of the diagrams is of a low standard. I found that this was only apparent when zooming in using standard touch gestures.

This was sometimes an issue when zooming in on highly detailed areas (see screenshots for example of before zoom, medium zoom and full zoom).

Despite these image resolution issues, the actual range of anatomy covered in this app is excellent. There are numerous images of each anatomical region and area which helps consolidate anatomical understanding of complex structures.

Each image has tens of labels ensuring that every structure is annotated. As such, many healthcare professionals will find it useful as a reference resource.

Each diagram is labeled with a number of blue dots which can be touched to show the answer. There is some inconsistency here as clicking some labels brings up a blue notification box while clicking others open a new page. The blue notification box system is fine as it allows you to continue observing the original image.

Opening a new page is not an effective system. You lose sight of the image and therefore can get confused about exactly which structure is being noted. It would have been nice to have the particular structure highlighted once it had been selected. In the screenshots below, one label was clicked in the image on the left and the label displayed was the image on the right.

Skyscape has taken a leaf out of Inklings business model and allow user’s to purchase individual sections at a reduced price rather than the whole book. Skyscape also offers an interesting ‘Rent a book’ offer where you can get access to the whole textbook for 12 months for a marginally reduced price ($71.95 vs. $76.95). The main difference is that renting a book includes access to any new editions that may be released within that year.

Price:

• $79.99

Likes:

• Complete collection of anatomical illustrations covering the whole human body
• Numerous images cover anatomical areas from a number of views helping to understand the complex interplay between various anatomical structures.

Dislikes:

• Opening a new page when selecting a label
• Resolution of images when magnified can be poor making the anatomy unclear

Overall Rating:

• Whilst Netter’s Atlas of Human Anatomy is expensive, it is a complete anatomy text with decent anatomical illustrations.
• The labeling system needs updating before it can be fully recommended as the app is difficult to use when a new page opens once a label has been selected.
• Similarly there are potentially a number of issues relating to the low resolution of images during magnification.
• Overall Skyscape’s version of Netter’s Atlas of Anatomy is a good anatomy atlas, although it is not a stand out contender.

iTunes link:
Android Review of Netter’s Atlas of Human Anatomy

Note: iPhone users can find our review of the Netter’s Musculoskeletal Flash Card app here.

A recent announcement made by the Veterans Affairs Department stated that they would be acquiring 100,000 tablets for their medical personnel to utilize.

The tablets are primarily intended for the VA’s thousands of medical clinicians, including doctors, nurses and technicians, although the article states that some might go to staff and managers at VA headquarters.

The imedicalapps team has previously discussed the Army’s use of tablet devices, and while not entirely the same utilization, it does show how tablets are becoming a permanent fixture in healthcare.

The VA’s acquisition strategy includes a nationwide mobile device management (MDM) solution that will make it easier to manage and securely connect tablets and smart phones to the agency’s enterprise network, according to a performance work statement published on the Federal Business Opportunities (FBO) website.

The FBO is the single government point-of-entry for solicitations of any dollar amount and for required synopsis over $25,000, allowing commercial business suppliers and government buyers to post, search, monitor, and retrieve opportunities in federal government markets. It can be thought of as a sophisticated government job board.

“Roger Baker, the VA’s chief information officer, previously had announced that the department was working to make iPhones and iPads available to staffers to connect to VA networks by Oct. 1. He also began testing out an iPad himself.”

Security was the primary concern regarding tablets accessing the secure VA network. If the tablets accessed the network without the proper security, there was the potential of exposing the entire network to virus and malware attacks– some of which could potentially steal private patient information. Because of this, Baker commissioned an internal study on security for the devices this summer.

“The study determined that the use of the MDM solution should be sufficient to overcome the lack of FIPS 140-2 encryption available for the iPhone and iPad, the work statement states. Key features include compliance enforcement, enterprise reporting and delivery of a custom VA applications store, the document states. The MDM solution allows VA to gain visibility to the devices as well as apply enforcement of VA security, management and other applicable policies to the devices from an enterprise perspective.”

Source: Federal Computer Week

by Brittany Chan, MBA, MS3

Just as I started to save in anticipation for the iPad 3, here comes the Kindle Fire.  At $199, I could pretty much afford to pre-order it now.

Amazon recently announced its new Kindle lineup, most notably including a full-color tablet device, the Kindle Fire.  Amazon also slashed the prices on its other Kindles—the Kindle Keyboard dropped in price to $99.  A simpler, keyboard-less Kindle is now available at only $79.

With so many different Kindles available, sizing up Amazon’s arsenal of e-Readers can be a bit overwhelming.  Let’s take a look at each of the different Kindle models and what this means for healthcare.

Kindle

• Price: $79 with Special Offers/$109 without Special Offers
• Display: 6” diagonal, E-ink Pearl
• Size: 6.5″ x 4.5″ x 0.34″
• Weight: 5.98 ounces
• Storage: Up to 1,400 books or 2 GB internal memory
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi
• Battery Life: Up to 1 month
• Available: Now

If all you want to do is read, this Kindle is the best value.  The device is small, inexpensive, and does the job as a solid quality e-Reader.  It has the smallest internal storage at only 2 GB, but unlimited Amazon Cloud storage allows customers to buy as many books as they want.  Of note, this Kindle is the only model that has no audio, so if you love audiobooks, listening to music on your Kindle, or text-to-speech conversion, this may not be for you.  Additionally, the absence of a keyboard may make web browsing and text annotation a little more challenging.

Kindle Touch/Kindle Touch 3G

• Price: Kindle Touch – $99 with special offers/$139 without special
• Kindle Touch 3G – $149 with special offers/$189 without special offers
• Display: 6” diagonal, E-ink Pearl
• Size: 6.8″ x 4.7″ x 0.40″
• Weight: Kindle Touch – 7.5 ounces, Kindle Touch 3G – 7.8 ounces
• Storage: Up to 3,000 books or 4 GB internal memory
• Connectivity: WiFi, plus free 3G on the 3G version
• Battery Life: Up to 2 months
• Available: November 21, 2011

For those in love with touch-screen technology, Amazon has announced the Kindle Touch.  It is just slightly larger and heavier than the Kindle, with the same size display.  EasyReach, a new type of touch technology invented by Amazon, allows the reader to turn the page by tapping instead of swiping the screen.  The Kindle Touch is available for pre-order on Amazon.com and will be released on November 21, 2011.

Kindle Keyboard/Kindle Keyboard 3G

• Price: Kindle Keyboard – $99 with special offers/$139 without special offers
• Kindle Keyboard 3G – $139 with special offers/$189 without special offers
• Display: 6” diagonal, E-ink Pearl
• Size: 7.5” x 4.8” x 0.34”
• Weight: Kindle Keyboard – 8.5 ounces, Kindle Keyboard 3G – 8.7 ounces
• Storage: Up to 3,500 books or 4 GB internal memory
• Connectivity: WiFi, plus free 3G on the 3G version
• Battery Life: Up to 2 months
• Available: Now

This is the familiar Kindle version that was announced back in July 2010, commonly referred to as the third-generation Kindle, or “Kindle 3.”  The keyboard, of course, makes this Kindle larger than the Kindle Touch or the simplest Kindle model, but web-browsing and annotation are much easier.  Interestingly, the price points for the Wi-Fi-only versions of the Kindle Touch and the Kindle Keyboard are exactly the same, while the 3G version of the Kindle Touch is $10 more expensive than its Kindle Keyboard counterpart.  The Kindle Keyboard is also available in both graphite and white colors.

Kindle DX

• Price: $379
• Display: 9.7” diagonal, E-ink Pearl
• Size: 10.4” x 7.2” x 0.38”
• Weight: 18.9 ounces
• Storage: Up to 3,500 books or 4 GB internal memory
• Connectivity: WiFi + free 3G
• Battery Life: Up to 2-3 weeks
• Available: Now

A larger screen is available on the Kindle DX, at 9.7 inches versus the 6-inch screen on other Kindle devices.  Newspapers and magazines are beautifully presented with this screen size, and it may be a better choice for the visually impaired.  The Kindle DX is equipped with a keyboard for easy surfing, shopping, and annotation.  However, the price is significantly higher, and the device is more cumbersome than the others.

Kindle Fire

• Price: $199
• Display: 7” diagonal
• Size: 7.5″ x 4.7″ x 0.45″
• Weight: 14.6 ounces
• Storage: 8GB internal (Enough for 80 apps, plus either 10 movies or 800 songs or 6,000 books)
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi
• Battery Life: Up to 8 hours of continuous reading or 7.5 hours of video playback, with wireless off
• Available: November 15, 2011

The star of the new Kindle lineup is no doubt the Kindle Fire.  Amazon’s hot new tablet (no pun intended) is geared toward customers who love media consumption but aren’t willing to shell out $500 to $800 for an iPad or other high-end tablet.  At 7 inches, the vibrant, full-color display is larger than those of its non-DX kin, but smaller than that of the iPad. The Kindle Fire uses touch-screen technology and is ready for games, apps, music, movies, and more.

As an iPad owner and avid Amazon customer, one of my gripes was that movies and shows purchased via Amazon Instant Video could not be viewed on the iPad, as they are Flash-based and no Amazon-supported app was available to make viewing possible.  From my experience, media available on Amazon Instant Video is often cheaper and more promptly released than on iTunes.  Amazon Instant Video is, of course, fully compatible with the Kindle Fire, and Amazon Prime customers enjoy free streaming of more than 10,000 movies and shows.

Amazon also promises smooth web browsing with its new browser Silk, available only on the Kindle Fire.  Silk utilizes “split-browser” technology through the Amazon Web Services Cloud.  The Kindle Fire and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud servers cache websites and predict user browsing patterns to send content to the device quickly, allowing pages to load faster.  There are some concerns about privacy and security with this system since all your web data will be transmitted through the Amazon cloud.   Amazon touts this as “machine learning.”  “As Silk serves up millions of page views every day,” Amazon says, “it learns more about the individual sites it renders and where users go next.”  In other words, Amazon is watching what you browse.  Welcome personalization feature, or gross invasion of privacy?  You decide.  Fortunately, customers will have the option to use Silk without having to go through the cloud, though speeds will be slower.

No tablet would be complete without apps, which are available on the Amazon AppStore.  However, the AppStore contains only a fraction of the apps available for iOS or Android devices.  Though the Kindle Fire runs a modified Android OS, you will only be able to purchase apps through Amazon’s own AppStore, not the Android Market.  This is a severe limitation of the Kindle Fire, as the availability of Angry Birds simply won’t cut it for more hardcore tablet users.

Then again, the Kindle Fire is not intended to be a hardcore tablet.  It has only 8 GB of internal memory and does not even have 3G capabilities or a camera.  This is reflected in the extremely affordable price of $199, a major source of appeal for customers simply looking to enjoy their media.

The Kindle Fire is a smart marketing device that will undoubtedly boost Amazon sales all around.  It combines the convenience of Apple’s one-stop media shopping with a reasonable price for consumers and unlimited cloud support.  It remains to be seen whether this gadget will meet customer expectations upon its release in November.

Applications for the Kindle in Healthcare and Medical Education

A few months ago, we discussed where the Kindle had failed as an education tool. With the release of the Kindle Fire, students who can’t afford more expensive tablets now have a more financially feasible option for electronic textbooks.  The LCD screen will allow medical students to view Netter’s Anatomy in all its full-color glory, along with other pictures and graphs that aren’t as friendly on the e-Ink page.  As an MS3 myself, I love using Kindle textbooks for school—one click and I can start studying, not to mention significant discounts given for Kindle books versus print.

The Kindle also has great potential to help busy healthcare professionals keep up with current literature.  A few medical journals, such as the New England Journal of Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, and the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, are currently available for subscription on the Kindle.  As the Kindle becomes even more popular, this limited selection will hopefully grow to include publications such as JAMA and journals from all medical specialties.

Portability of the Kindle Fire on medical rounds also makes it a favorable device for physicians.  I was disheartened when my iPad proved too large and heavy for my white coat pocket.  The 7-inch size of the Kindle Fire, following the likes of the Blackberry Playbook and the HTC Flyer, slips comfortably into a white coat for easy accessibility on the job.  And since it weighs less than one pound, doctors will hardly notice its presence.

While the Kindle Fire is an attractive device for medical students and physicians, its promise seems to lie more with its e-Reader features and not so much as a medical tablet.  As discussed earlier, its app selection is relatively dismal when compared to those of Apple and Android; commonly used medical apps as Epocrates and Medscape are not yet available on the Amazon AppStore.   The healthcare community has been buzzing about the potential use of tablets in telemedicine, especially with the revelation that Apple’s FaceTime can be HIPAA-compliant. With its relatively weak hardware and absence of a camera, the Kindle Fire will have no role here.  Furthermore, the questionable security of Amazon Silk makes it unlikely that the Kindle Fire will be used for sending or recording patient data.

The Bottom Line

The new Kindle lineup seems to have something for everyone, from bookworms in search of a simple e-Reader to avid media consumers with expansive music and video libraries.  With its convenient availability of media and affordable price, the Kindle Fire will appeal to a large audience.  Medical students who wish to ditch their huge backpacks and save significantly on textbook costs may find that the Kindle Fire suits their needs.  As it stands, however, the Kindle Fire may be little more than a personal, quick reference device for healthcare professionals.  Despite its marketability as a tablet, the Kindle Fire simply does not have the horsepower to directly compete with more powerful devices such as the iPad in the medical setting.  More robust tablets will be needed for use in actual medical practice.

Sources:
Amazon.com
MSNBC
ComputerWorld

By Cory Schultz and Satish Misra, MD

The Health 2.0 conference just wrapped up in San Fransisco, continuing a trend of impressive growth that reflects the accelerating pace of change in medicine. In fact, this year the conference will be held around the world throughout the year in such locations as San Francisco, New Delhi, India and Berlin, Germany.

Some of the innovative companies driving this change were given the opportunity to show off their products, catching the attention of the popular media as well as healthcare professionals. iMedicalApps has covered many of these companies before, such as Withings whose blood pressure cuff we put in a head-to-head comparison with a similar product from iHealth. In addition to Withings, two other companies – Basis and Ideal Life – caught the attention of popular media outlets.

Basis is a company that has created an affordable, relatively low-priced wrist-worn heart rate monitor and health tracker device.

According to the Basis website, they believe it’s easier to get and stay healthy when wellness is fun, social and informative. The device will be available later this year and will sell for $199. According to their website,

“To put this within everyone’s reach, we invented the Basis Band – the world’s first connected health and heart rate monitor wearable on the wrist. Convenient and customizable, the multi-sensor Basis Band collects data like heart rate, calories burned, physical activity and sleep patterns. It links wirelessly to your personal dashboard where you can easily view performance, share data, earn rewards, and engage with the Basis community. Basis is backed by Norwest Venture Partners and DCM.”

We talked about this kind of technology in greater detail with the CEO of Emergency Medical Technologies, whose Wriskwatch similarly provides heart rate, blood pressure, and other physiologic monitoring capabilities in a wristwatch. Whats particularly interesting is the linkage to social media to drive healthy behaviors, a trend we are seeing with a number of other mobile health technologies as well. In addition to these community-derived incentives, it will be interesting to see what other incentive structures develop to drive healthy behaviors. For example, the Basis Band could be used to track aerobic exercise with the incentive being discounts on insurance premiums if a patient meets a certain goal.

Another company that has a device promoted at Health 2.0 is Withing. They currently have a new blood pressure monitor that integrates with an iPhone which was previously reviewed by the iMedicalApps team.

“The new device, priced at $129.95, features a battery-operated cuff that straps around your arm and plugs into an iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. Your blood pressure and heart rate results can be sent to health sites such as Google Health or Microsoft HealthVault, social media sites, or straight to your doctor. The monitor comes with a free companion app downloadable from the iTunes Store.”

Moreover, IDEAL LIFE showed off their new IDEAL LIFE Health Tablet. IDEAL LIFE is a multinational company that creates mHealth devices that are secure, reliable, and mobile. The tablet device demonstrated is their next product iteration, described as

“…the first electronic tablet to automatically sync data between healthcare provider information systems and patients’ health records. The IDEAL LIFE tablet works on any cellular network, connecting consumers with their own health records when they need them.”

The Health 2.0 Conference presented numerous new health innovations that cater to the medical community and general public alike. In fact, we previously discussed the winners of the Health 2.0 Code-a-thon. While not every device, system, or idea presented will make it, there is clearly a great deal of energy and investment taking place that will hopefully help us improve the way we care for patients.

Source: Yahoo News