EMR in Your Pocket

Florencio P. Neri, MD, a family practitioner in Princeton, WV, uses several medical apps, including ITF-GoDoc from Halfpenny Technologies, which gives him access to lab results and critical value alerts from LabCorp. Not one day goes by that he doesn’t open it, he says.

The app alerts him with visual and audio alarms when clinical messages and abnormal test results are available—critical alerts are highlighted in red. Because he can send results to patients with a text message whenever and wherever, he says the app makes him more efficient and productive.

A PwC survey of 1,000 physicians about use and preferences for remote and mobile health services and devices found 57% of physicians want to use remote devices to monitor the patients outside of the hospital. But they don’t want all data all the time—they want filtered information or exceptions in their patient’s health. Too much information could actually slow down care, respondents said.

“New consumer-oriented business models and technologies are emerging,” says Daniel Garrett, leader of the health information technology practice at PwC. “Companies that will be well positioned competitively are those than can integrate mobile health into healthcare delivery and create value in the health system by helping doctors and their patients better manage health and wellness through mass personalization.” 

He adds there are “significant opportunities” for physicians, hospitals, health systems, and payers to market and differentiate themselves using mobile health. “Yet many healthcare organizations are largely ignoring the opportunity to integrate mobile health into other IT efforts such as
the implementation of electronic health records.”

In fact, 30% of the physicians surveyed said their hospital or practice leaders will not support the use of mobile health devices. The rub: 63% of physicians said they’re using personal devices for mobile health solutions that aren’t connected to their practice or hospital IT systems.

That scattershot approach can cause problems, Larson says. IT leaders should work with end users to assess what devices physicians want and determine which ones are best for the organization. “While not every request can be accommodated, this will allow an organization to strategically deploy devices enterprisewide,” he says.

Healthcare leaders who are skeptical that such handheld devices and apps are much more than fun toys should reconsider. “The iPad could fundamentally change the way our clinicians and staff approach their IT needs,” Larson says. “Spending time searching for available desktops will increasingly be a thing of the past.”