Mobile

A new report shows 84 percent of U.S. FDA-approved health apps tested by IT security vendor Arxan Technologies did not adequately address at least two of the Open Web Application Security Project top 10 risks. 

Carestream says Vue Motion platform also addresses Stages 2 and 3 meaningful use because it gives patients an easy way to see their images.

John Sharp sits down with Healthcare IT News to discuss patient engagement as it relates to meaningful use and mobile apps, and shows off his Regina Holliday Walking Gallery jacket painting entitled "Community." LEARNING CENTER: 2015 HIMSS Connected Health Conference Session Recordings

Duke Medicine claims to be the first Epic-based health system to implement the Fast Health Information Resources application programming interface in conjunction with Apple's HealthKit within a live environment. FHIR is an emerging interoperability protocol that was all the rage at HIMSS15 and appears to be even hotter going into HIMSS16 – where Duke’s director of mobile technology strategy Ricky Bloomfield, MD intends to discuss accomplishments and lessons learned during the Monday morning keynote titled “A leap forward in healthcare.” Bloomfield’s talk will touch on recent innovations that help Duke’s physicians and patients connect in meaningful ways. Using HealthKit and FHIR, for instance, “enables us to integrate standards-based apps without significant configuration or effort,” Bloomfield said. [Also at HIMSS16: Biometrics a crucial next step for patient safety] On top of that foundation Duke can “liberate electronic health records data by using standardized application programming interfaces so data can be consumed by innovators.” Duke is among an elite corps of cutting-edge hospital systems already using Apple’s HealthKit in a pilot to integrate with Epic MyChart. Ochsner Health System and Stanford Health are also using HealthKit with Epic. As the physician leading Duke’s HealthKit charge, Bloomfield has seen interest in a range of Duke’s practices areas, most notably endocrinologists, obstetrics and gynecology, even oncologists. Whether at Duke, Ochsner, Stanford or elsewhere, hospitals and other provider organizations must understand the digital needs of their patients and create tools that help both patient and provider fulfill the goals of mobile and connected health: improved care and lower costs. “Connected health is a means to an end — that end is to improve the health of all people, and to do so at lower cost,” Bloomfield said. “The greatest promise of connected health is that it enables and empowers patients to be more involved in their own care, which will hopefully decrease the emphasis on direct contact with healthcare organizations.” For patients with chronic or otherwise severe disease, Bloomfield added, connected health will equip providers to monitor and treat them from afar, reducing the time and financial burden on these patients while keeping them away from other sick patients in a clinical setting. Duke Medicine is out front in the move to improve care through mobile and connected health initiatives. For instance, it is an early adopter of Apple Inc.’s HealthKit software, piloting it with a small number of patients with an eye on integrating it with Duke’s implementation of the Epic MyChart electronic health record. Bloomfield’s keynote session is schedule for Monday, Feb. 29, 2016 at the Sands Expo Convention Center in Galileo 901. HIMSS16 runs from Feb. 29-Mar. 4. Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT

Court rules makers of the memory sharpening app preyed on consumers’ fears about age-related cognitive decline.

Medtronic and IBM applied cognitive analytics to 600 anonymous patient cases using data from Medtronic insulin pumps and glucose monitors.

While 66 of the 100 largest hospitals in the United States offer consumers mobile health apps, only 2 percent of patients are using them, according to a new report published on Wednesday by Accenture that also found that failure to focus apps on services consumers want most could cost each hospital more than $100 million a year in lost revenue. In its “Losing Patience: Why Healthcare Providers Need to Up Their Mobile Game” report, the consultancy found that 38 of those top U.S. hospitals have developed health apps in-house rather than by hiring a mobile app vendor.  By not aligning their functions and user experience with what patients expect, many of these mobile health apps are failing to win over more patients. For example, only 11 percent of the hospital apps offer at least one of the three most desired functions: access to medical records; the ability to book, change and cancel appointments; and the ability to request prescription refills, Accenture found. Significantly, about 7 percent of patients have switched healthcare providers because of a poor experience with online customer service, including mobile apps, Accenture said. Accenture suggested that as consumers bring their service expectations from other industries into healthcare, providers will likely see higher switching rates on par with the mobile phone industry (9 percent), cable TV providers (11 percent) or even retail (30 percent). “In many cases, we’re seeing hospitals only offering a subset of things in their mobile apps — view labs, look up some basic forms,” Brian Kalis, managing director of the health practice at Accenture, told Healthcare IT News. “A lot of what is offered is around core medical record pieces versus easy appointment scheduling and such. It’s just static information, not personalized or tailored to an individual.” When developing new mobile health apps, or when revamping existing mobile apps, hospitals must adopt a patient-centric approach, Kalis said. “Moving to a person-centered approach will help hospitals understand what the mobile experience should be in terms of how patients interact in mobile and what they want,” Kalis said. “From there, hospitals might work more closely with electronic medical records vendors, advocating for a better experience and more flexibility in tailoring that experience. And hospitals might choose a custom solution, more for the patient-facing piece, and work on building out a digital engagement platform on their own to provide more control over and flexibility of the experience.” Further, hospitals should engage with prominent digital and mobile health companies that offer unique solutions — such as ZocDoc and InstaMed Go — to understand areas of great interest to consumers and how they fit into the healthcare ecosystem, Kalis said. When it comes to the question of buy versus build, Kalis suggested with mobile health it’s not a matter of either/or. Instead, it should be both. “Hospitals can work with emerging digital health disruptors in the mobile space and Internet of Things space; this can be done parallel with building solutions in-house,” he said. “It’s about the pace and scale of change: As you work on putting together a better experience for people on your own, or in collaboration with an electronic medical records vendor, there will always be a new set of solutions out there that is evolving. Collaborating with companies behind such solutions will further inform solutions built up within the enterprise.” As the pace and scale of mobile health technology continues to grow faster and larger, hospitals must keep up. “Mobile engagement is becoming increasingly critical to the success of every hospital in the digital age,” Kalis said. “Consumers want ubiquitous access to products and services as part of their customer experience, and those who become disillusioned with a provider’s mobile services, or a lack thereof, could look elsewhere for services.”  Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT

New college graduates entering the lucrative mobile app economy earn about $99,000 per year on average, more than double the average salary that a typical new grad earns, according to a new report from ACT/The App Association. As a result, the booming market is giving healthcare professionals a steadily increasing number of new and potentially lucrative job opportunities. “Changes in the regulatory landscape have created new opportunities for connected health companies,” said Morgan Reed, executive director of ACT/The App Association, in a statement. “With healthcare providers shifting from fee-for-service to value-based payments, growth will continue in key areas including chronic condition management, personal fitness and wellness, and remote patient monitoring.” Mobile apps are poised to have a profound impact this year on the $3 trillion healthcare industry, the report titled “State of the App Economy” found. For example, 86 percent of clinicians say mobile apps will be central to patient health by 2020; the connected health market will reach $117 billion by 2020; and the remote patient monitoring market will reach $46 billion by 2017. The so-called app economy is a $120 billion ecosystem worldwide. While 74 percent of app companies are in the United States, 82 percent are startups or small businesses and 82 percent are located outside of Silicon Valley in both urban and rural areas. The research also determined that 68 percent of app companies have unfilled positions – and that number is growing. App businesses typically start out very small. Those that achieve success suddenly are in need of various types of professionals to manage and take the business to the next level of growth. Top skills in demand are: developer, marketing, engineering, business development, human resources, customer service, finance and legal expertise. These professionals can be seasoned executives or new college graduates. Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT

Mark Goodge, CTO for the Department of Defense & Health Affairs, shares his thoughts on the 2015 HIMSS Connected Health Conference and how the DOD is planning to utilize emerging technologies to improve healthcare.

Patricia Salber, MD, founder and CEO of Health Tech Hatch and host of the popular blog "The Doctor Weighs In," reflects on discussions from the 2015 Big Data & Healthcare Analytics Forum in Boston.