Eight minutes. That’s approximately how long new doctors spend face-to-face with patients today. In those precious eight minutes, doctors have a laundry list of tasks to accomplish: convey patient’s condition, prognosis and treatment options–all while charting protected health information securely.
The abbreviated visit is even more problematic for the 88 percent of adults who have less-than-proficient health literacy. Low health literacy leads to more adverse health outcomes, including higher hospital admissions, and costs, according to recent studies.
Is this the new normal? Should we just make the most of our brief visit? Or, can we proactively, and creatively, find ways to maximize the quality of this vital interaction?
To bridge the time and knowledge gap with patients, more clinicians are turning to a variety of point-of-care applications. Physicians have responded favorably, with some 86 percent adopting various mHealth applications to support their patient interactions. With new point-of-care apps debuting regularly, what distinguishes the best from the rest?
Features of a great app
1. A clear, specific function
When it comes to medical apps, if it’s too broad or difficult to use, it may get downloaded but it won’t be actively used. What physicians need most is a way to simplify complicated medical information, using tools and templates that are customized for each patient across a broad population. Doctors need the ability to use visual tools to explain a patient’s condition, and share it securely with the patient and other healthcare team members.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Additionally, the app content should fit the “80/20 Rule.” In healthcare there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution. point-of-care apps should aim to cover as much of the content needed as possible while still leaving enough flexibility to be sufficiently customizable to the specific needs of the physician. Trying to provide a content-based app that is 100 percent exhaustive is costly, constraining, and is unnecessary. highly effective point-of-care apps cover the most commonly used materials – the 80 percent – and leave options for the remainder through continuous updates or end-user customization.
2. Usable and fast
It’s one thing for Angry Birds to take a few minutes to load. But imagine waiting that long for a point-of-care app to load during an appointment. If it takes two minutes, a quarter of the eight minute visit is wasted. Even worse, if the app crashes and needs to be pulled back up, half the appointment is gone.
A good app should help doctors maximize the few precious moments they have with patients. The popular iPad app drawMD is a vivid example. Developed by Visible Health, the app is as easy to use as picking up a pencil. drawMD communicates anatomy, conditions and procedures with patients through simple drawings and sketch tools, while supporting conversations around specific conditions and procedures This helps doctors engage patients and improve clinical outcomes. Compared to traditional software that tries to keep users in their apps as long as possible, drawMD strives to keep users in their apps for a minimum amount of time, while effectively achieving its goals.
Improvements in patient satisfaction
Point-of-care applications comprise more than just patient-education apps. The ability to decipher complex clinical data and determine the best treatment options is no longer a pipe dream. One of the fastest growing advances in healthcare today is genomic testing, which has revolutionized the fields of predictive health and diagnostic medicine. While genomic testing allows for more targeted choices of therapy, it is only meaningful if doctors understand how to interpret the data.
A case in point: After a patient’s prostate cancer surgery, for example, an oncologist can’t use a physical exam to know whether the the cancer will metastasize five years down the road. Now a genomic test called Decipher analyzes 22 RNA biomarkers to calculate the probability of clinical metastasis. But the oncologist is not a geneticist. How can he or she make sense of the complex Decipher test results in order to recommend either radiation or active surveillance as the next step? He may turn to Decipher Portal Professional app, which provides secure, access to a comprehensible explanation of genomic data.
Studies show that with the knowledge and understanding of genomic classifiers, more than 3 out of 10 physicians would change treatment recommendations from radiation to surveillance or vice versa. Decipher Portal Professional provides this vital information to physicians, giving them the tools to communicate the secure information making it easier to understand while improving clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction.
Outlooks for the future
Today’s aging population and the dramatic rise in chronic disease conditions are not only driving up healthcare costs, but driving the growing need for mobile tools in medicine. mHealth offers opportunities for predictive, participatory and preventive health care. It improves access to quality care, offers dramatic innovation and reduces spiraling healthcare costs.
As more and more doctors turn to mobile tools to support their practices, expect to see the best point-of-care apps make the most out of the precious time in which they and their patients interact directly.
