Improving Health Care Efficiency with Smartphones

Smartphones have opened up a lot of new opportunities in many industries, and the health care sector isn’t any different. Health care providers need new and innovative solutions to improve their ability to care for patients, track data, and build patient-provider relationships. Smartphones have the potential to address those needs.

Many health care providers have been eager to integrate smartphone apps into their daily routines. Some surveys have shown more and more physicians are using these mobile devices to assist them with their research, patient care, and other administrative functions. Now that some major federal incentives have encouraged health care providers to adopt electronic health record systems, this kind of mobile access is getting more important and more convenient.

Different organizations can use a wide range of smartphones, just as long as they can run the appropriate apps. Health care-related apps can easily be integrated into a physician’s daily workflow so they can access necessary information wherever and whenever they need it. Many of these apps are available to the public, making them available to anyone who owns a smartphone.

Types of Apps for Health Care Providers

Disease Management: This is one of the most important kinds of apps that can improve health care efficiency. Physicians often have trouble monitoring their patients’ health outside the doctor’s office, and patients struggle to keep track of what they can do to improve their health on their own. With disease management apps, physicians can help their patients keep track of and manage treatments of chronic conditions such as asthma, diabetes, and arthritis.

Disease management apps can potentially improve communication between patients and health care providers. Within these apps, patients are encouraged to track symptoms they are experiencing and follow prescribed care plans. Some of these apps actually connect to their physician’s electronic health record systems to   track their symptoms more effectively. This helps providers monitor what is going on with their patients.

These kinds of apps have a lot potential for the health care world because they provide a way for physicians to retrieve data that they would normally only get in the office. When patients efficiently track their symptoms, treatments, and progress, providers are able to form better solutions to treat individual problems and even study different cases to come up with new treatments.

Disease management apps can also be beneficial to patients in other ways. They often provide scheduling features for patients that need to take consistent medication or refill prescriptions often. These apps can also provide dieting and healthy living tips, as well as exercising education to help get people proactive about managing their health.

Electronic Health Records: Since many hospitals and clinics have recently made a large conversion over to using a new electronic format, there is vast potential to integrate these electronic records with smartphone apps.

An app could easily connect to these electronic medical records and provide instant access to a patient’s medical history, even if that patient is brand new to the clinic. This takes away the need to contact different clinics and provide proof of authorization by the patient to get each of those medical records, which could save a lot of time and hassle for hospitals and clinics.

These types of apps could also be used simply for administration purposes such as checking in and managing schedules.

Clinical Reference: Clinical reference apps provide physicians with a wealth of information at their fingertips. These apps give physicians and health care easy access to all kinds of clinical information that they can use during appointments to provide better information to their patients.

Developers are also working on clinical reference apps that can enable users to identify different kinds of drugs and how multiple drugs will interact with each other.

Patients can also use these apps to find information about their own symptoms and find suggestions on how to treat or get treated for different problems they are experiencing. Of course, health care approved apps would need to be created so that patients can know whether the information they are receiving within the app is valid or not.

Taking the Social Angle

Smartphones can also connect patients to other patients through social media. Online communities are great places for people to get together and talk about their symptoms and treatments, as well as encourage and empathize with one another. Since social media is so present in the modern world, health care providers are encouraging people to start using social media apps to assist with their health and treatments.

Some developers are starting to focus on social media apps specifically for physicians. These apps provide places for providers to go and discuss different treatments that work well for them. They also offer better communication between groups of providers within the same geographical area. With these apps, health care providers can identify patients that have greater risks for reoccurring disease and readmission to hospitals and will be able to track these cases and share their information with other caregivers in the area.

The Struggle Continues

While the rise of health care apps has been very successful in many areas, there are still a lot of problems that the industry currently faces. One of the primary concerns is the group of patients that can’t afford smartphones or aren’t capable enough to learn how to use these new devices. How will the use of these mobile devices benefit this group of people?

Another challenge for physicians is the amount of time they would normally spend outside of work utilizing these apps. Some people have expressed concerns about the proper amount of reimbursement. If they don’t get paid for the time they spend using these apps outside of normal working hours, they may not be so excited to use them.

While there are challenges to still address with the integration of this mobile technology, there is still a lot of potential. Many health care providers are pushing to use apps and smartphones to increase and improve efficiency in hospitals and clinics all over the country.

How are mobile devices affecting your office? Tell us down below.

Matt Smith works for Dell and has a passion for learning and writing about technology. Outside of work he enjoys entrepreneurship, being with his family, and the outdoors.