healthcare technology

Healthcare providers who access clinical decision support through mHealth platforms are finding a world of information at their fingertips – and they could be saving lives.

Digital technologies are changing the way medical information is gathered and exchanged.  Physicians of all ages and medical subspecialties from across the globe are utilizing tools to discuss potential diagnoses and obtain second opinions.

That’s the takeaway from researchers at the Scripps Research Translational Institute who took a closer look at online crowdsourced consult platforms.

Their conclusion is that these platforms, which include social media networks like SERMO, Medscape and HealthTap, are giving providers quick access to information that’s helping them reduce serious, costly and potentially deadly medical errors.

The study, focusing on an analysis of more than 37,000 active users on the MedScape Consult network between 2015 and 2017, appears in a recent issue of NPJ Digital Medicine.

The research points to the value of a mobile health resource for clinical decision support, giving providers a real-time portal for physician-to-physician engagement. Billed as a source for “the second to hundredth opinion in medicine,” these portals allow providers to gather best practices and apply them quickly, reducing the chances of a clinical error.

The study also points to the changing nature of clinical decision support.The study noted that providers can’t necessarily rely on informal face-to-face consults with colleagues – commonly known as curbside consults – because they’re “frequently inaccurate and incomplete.” Yet they can’t just call up a nearby specialist at a moment’s notice.

The study found that : "At a time when we’re turning to artificial intelligence to help improve diagnostic accuracy, there’s still plenty of room for tapping into human intelligence via such medical consulting platforms, Artificial intelligence has been advocated as the definitive pathway for reducing misdiagnosis, But the study's findings suggest the potential for collective human intelligence, which is algorithm-free and performed rapidly on a voluntary basis, to emerge as a competitive or complementary strategy."

It’s one of those thoughts many mHealth insiders and observers have at some point had: What if one could put the power of Watson analytics into a smartphone and interact with it like Apple’s Siri at the point of care?

Well, that specific dream moved closer to reality on Tuesday when Apple and IBM joined forces to create a mobile platform christened IBM Mobile First for iOS.

“For the first time ever we’re putting IBM’s renowned big data analytics at iOS users’ fingertips,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a prepared statement. “This is a radical step for enterprise and something that only Apple and IBM can deliver.”

IBM CEO Ginni Rometty added that the intention is to bring the same “innovations [that] have transformed our lives,” into the ways that people work, thereby “allowing people to re-imagine work, industries, and professions.”

To that end, the companies hope that IBM Mobile First for iOS will “transform enterprise mobility through a new class of business apps,” they explained.

It’s not all that often technology giants align and rattle off healthcare as one of their target verticals, much less that Apple joins forces with any of the IT old guard — which gives the partnership a booster shot of luster. And in an mHealth industry currently going like gangbusters with too many startups to count, the sheer scale that Apple and IBM bring at the very least has the potential for significant market-shaping.

Text Messaging (SMS) technology is widely adopted in developing countries.

Text message-based health surveys distributed to 6,694 Liberians during an Ebola outbreak were generally on par with baseline demographic data collected in a prior household survey, according to a study recently published in Nature Digital Medicine. Further, the text surveys suggested that women sought fewer hospital-based deliveries during the outbreak, a trend consistent with other retrospective studies that have been published since the outbreak.

The Ebola outbreak was, and in some areas continues to be, a test of public health infrastructure. In regard to maternal care in particular, the researchers noted that many communities perceived a reduction in care quality as practitioners were advised not to make physical contact patients espousing fluids whenever possible.

As such, a viable, real-time data collection system that is based on a technology widely adopted by residents can be a substantial boon to health systems facing crisis,

Why it matters 

Taken together, these findings would indicate that these text-based surveys could be an avenue toward more real-time data collection in developing countries gripped by outbreaks.

for more, read the original unedited article at https://www.mobihealthnews.com/content/text-based-survey-offers-accurate-real-time-health-info-during-ebola-outbreak-study-says

HealthTap published a survey of the top physician-rated apps for both iOS and Android, and breaks it down into 30 separate categories.

HealthTap founder and CEO Ron Gutman said the company's goal is to give clinicians and consumers a guide to choosing apps that have been approved by doctors, rather than resorting to the user ratings found in app stores (HealthTap's AppRx app, by the way, has a healthy 4.72 star rating in the Apple App Store, he said). The apps are judged on three standards – ease of use, effectiveness and medical accuracy, validity and soundness. They're not given a number rating, but are ranked solely based on how many doctors would recommend them.

Top 10 Health and Medical Apps for Android

1. Weight Watchers Mobile (Weight Watchers International)

2. White Noise Lite (TMSoft)

3. Lose It! (FitNow)

4. First Aid (American Red Cross)

5. RunKeeper – GPS Track Run Walk (FitnessKeeper)

6. Emergency First Aid/Treatment (Phoneflips)

7. Instant Heart Rate (Azumio)

8. Fooducate – Healthy Food Diet (Fooducate)

9. Glucose Buddy – Diabetes Log (Azumio)

10. Pocket First Aid & CPR (Jive Media)

Top Health and Medical Apps for iOS

1. Calorie Counter and Diet Tracker (MyFitnessPal.com)

2. Weight Watchers Mobile (Weight Watchers International)

3. Lose It! (FitNow)

4. White Noise Lite (TMSoft)

5. First Aid (American Red Cross)

6. Runkeeper (FitnessKeeper)

7. Stroke Riskometer (Autel)

8. Emergency First Aid & Treatment Guide (Phoneflips)

9. Instant Heart Rate (Azumio)

10. Fooducate (Foducate)