Smartphone apps help patients monitor their heart rate or manage their diabetes, even map their sleep patterns – and some can now be paid for by insurance.
But first, vetting, paying for and monitoring the proper use of such apps needs to be worked out, Joshua Brustein reported, not to mention a change in the way people think about medicine.
“It is intuitive to people, the idea of a prescription,” Lee H. Perlman, managing director of Happtique, a subsidiary of the business arm of the Greater New York Hospital Association, told Brustein. Happtique is creating a system to allow doctors to prescribe apps.
“We’re basically saying that pills can also be information, that pills can also be connectivity,” Brustein referenced of Perlman’s remarks.
Brustein noted that if smartphone-based systems can reduce the amount of other medical care that patients need by monitoring their vital signs and glucose levels, no longer requiring them to visit doctors for the same purposes, the potential savings to the healthcare system would be astronomical.
The total cost of treating diabetes alone in 2007 was $174 billion, according to the most recent statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But unlike personal computer software, distributed with the accepted idea that the public will find the kinks, “medical care cannot be introduced to the public with bugs that will be fixed later,” Brustein wrote. “The industry is still grappling with how to ensure quality and safety.”
WellDoc’s DiabetesManager system, which patients can use through a smartphone app, standard cell phone or desktop computer, collects information about a patient’s diet, blood sugar levels and medication regimen. Patients can enter this data manually or link their devices wirelessly with glucose monitors that then transmit information to caregivers for analysis and possible intervention.
DiabetesManager takes it one step further, suggesting the best food after recording a low midday blood-sugar reading. It also uses an algorithm to analyze the medical data and send clinical recommendations to the doctor, according to Brustein.
WellDoc told Brustein that in a clinical trial, DiabetesManager “was shown to reduce significantly the blood sugar levels in diabetes patients.”
Two insurance companies have already agreed to pay the bill for patients whose doctors ask them to use the system when it is available early next year, said Anand K. Iyer, company president.
Zipit Wireless has also launched a new smartphone app for mobile phones and tablets to give healthcare workers easy access to secure, real-time tools – an issue that has in the past delayed critical care to patients.
The DiabetesManager app is one of fewer than 10 to date that has gained clearance from the FDA.
Edited by
Braden Becker
