Intermountain Healthcare is coming out with an app hub next month that will house many of its healthcare apps to avoid users having to look through Google Play or iTunes’s app store. Its director of marketing, Craig Kartchner, talked about the hub as part of a presentation on how the company is using mobile health apps as patient-engagement tools. It’s an interesting move because it’s part of an emerging healthcare trend that hospitals should have a greater role in developing and managing apps.
As part of his presentation at the connected patient learning gallery at HIMSS this week, Kartchner highlighted some of the newest apps it’s been developing. One, GermWatch, is a mobile version of a web-based tool to alert parents and caregivers to pathogens active in their community in real-time. A physician finder will help people identify the nearest urgent care center among Intermountain’s 185 centers, based on the user’s current location. A Send Wishes function helps users send flowers or get-well cards to patients. Among other services offered is a bill-pay mechanism
Another app it developed, Intermountain Go, is for physical therapy and sports medicine. There’s currently a Facebook page that includes instructional videos from physical therapists as well as a blog with subjects such as how to prep for a half marathon.
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The market penetration of smartphones combined with the growing number of people inclined to use those phones to look up healthcare information has led to the expansion of mobile-based, patient-engagement tools.
Another company in the pavilion was Anthelio Healthcare Solutions, which recently acquired a mobile application from The Garage called ENGAGE. It’s designed to educate and entertain patients as it connects them with providers and help payers. and enriches their experience. It also helps providers and payers deploy content to patients and members.
Anthelio offered demos of its Patient PULSE tool to help people navigate several different healthcare interactions from finding their way to their physician’s office (adopting the hospitality industry approach, “way finding”) to making it to their appointments on time, refilling prescriptions and communicating with physicians, among other tools.
Elsevier’s Clinical Solutions took a multimedia approach to not only boosting health literacy but also helping hospitals avoid costly re-admissions. Its modules are part of a set of discharge instructions. It allows care providers to check to see whether patients have viewed the set of videos, articles and a quiz to help patients understand their treatment and the recovery process and demonstrate their awareness. In the future, clinicians will be able to deploy content automatically based on the ICD-10 codes they enter, according to an Elsevier spokesman.
