Mobile Apps Take Care Everywhere

Healthcare doesn’t have to wait until your next doctor’s appointment. It doesn’t have to be confined to a hospital, clinic or doctor’s office. Thanks to smart phones and other mobile devices, healthcare can happen right now, wherever you are.

Nearly 70 percent of Americans have smart phones, giving them access to an exploding network of healthcare apps and programs that is shrinking our dependence on bricks-and-mortar offices. Clearly, mobile devices will not replace doctors, nurses, hospitals or clinics; rather, they will add to the caregiver-patient relationship by providing real-time updates and relevant information. These apps make it easy for millions of people to search for health information, check symptoms, and connect caregivers, patients and their medical records.

What does this mean for the future of healthcare? Lower costs, improved wellness, and better outcomes.

Mobile biometrics is a transformational technology, providing tools to promote healthier lifestyle choices. There are apps that record and store information on diet, sleep patterns, exercise, and blood glucose levels. Patients can track their progress toward wellness goals on their mobile device. There are even apps to help you quit smoking. These apps help raise patients’ awareness of their behaviors and gives their caregivers quantifiable data to guide their care.

The next step for mobile biometrics is chronic disease care. Mobile sensors are being developed that will allow patients to transmit weight, pulse, blood pressure, glucose levels and other data to caregivers in real time. These vital signs will be integrated with the information in the patient’s medical record to create a constant mobile reference point for patients and caregivers. Algorithms will be developed that will combine these data to predict oncoming health issues and permit timely intervention.

Cleveland Clinic led early developments in mobile healthcare, including an app that makes it easy for community physicians to find specialists and refer patients to our care; an epilepsy app that allows patients to track their seizures, learn more about epilepsy and its treatments, and to live better with their condition; the “Let’s Move It” app that promotes and tracks exercise.; the Cancer Clinical Trials app that keeps cancer patients up to date on the 130 or so cancer trials we have going on at any given time; and the “Today” app that delivers daily health and wellness articles, blogs, videos, infographics, recipes, and more.

Nationally, the NIH is promoting research on the use of mobile apps for healthcare in low- and middle-income areas.

All of these advances lead to better patient care, as caregivers and patients have more access to more of their personal health information than ever before. The high penetration of mobile phones in many otherwise underdeveloped nations makes this a particularly promising direction in improving world health. Among all the revolutions currently underway in healthcare, mobile technology stands out for combining great promise with the ability to reach millions and millions of people instantly.

Photo: Denys Prykhodov / shutterstock