Smart Phones, Healthier Patients

We all know smart phones are great for calling, e-mailing, texting and snapping photos… but who knew they could make us healthier?

Thanks to downloadable apps, smart phones like Apple’s iPhone and Motorola’s Android are increasingly becoming extensions of who we are. Endlessly customizable and getting more so every day, these ubiquitous devices are now making an impact on the way we manage our health.

For example, Android’s free Medscape app comes with a database of over 8,000 brand, generic and OTC drugs, herbals and supplements. It also comes with a disease and condition reference with articles on more than 4,000 maladies. By the way, did we mention it’s free? And that’s just one app.

Check out Apple’s App Store on your iPhone and you’ll find no less than a hundred downloadable utilities devoted to Health Care and Fitness alone. Want to manage your diabetes? Merck’s Vree app lets patients record their blood sugar levels, monitor their nutrient intake and even prepare reports – all without the need of a pencil and notepad. For would-be mothers hoping to get pregnant, there are at least half a dozen menstrual cycle predictors, and for those who succeed, there are journals to record every contraction and kick. For those with hemophilia, there’s HemoLog, a utility that helps patients electronically log their infusions of Factor VIII concentrations. Best of all, thanks to the superabundance of options, these applications are affordably priced, usually between $1.99 and $4.99 each.

Consumers aren’t the only ones making use of the technology available to them. Insurance companies are also wisely getting in on the act. Last October, Cigna Health launched a mobile phone app to provide its customers answers instantly at the touch of a button. The app – which was developed for Cigna by the mobile commerce technology firm Usablenet — not only allows policy holders to locate and access over a million health care providers, hospitals and pharmacies nationwide, it can place prescription orders, compare medication costs and more.

“As more and more Americans are accessing the Web through their mobile phones, it is clear that mobile is a massive opportunity for health service companies to allow medical professionals and consumers to seamlessly access core services from all mobile phones, wherever they may be,” said Usable’s president, Nick Taylor.

Of course, no phone app will ever be a substitute for an actual health care provider. But smart phones can  provide a complementary tool– a means for patients to be better educated and more actively engaged in their own health, which ultimately may help lead to better outcomes.