Healthcare Technology Featured Article

January 15, 2013

Apps for the Heart


The mHealth (mobile health) revolution has begun sweep through medical fields across the world, serving as a platform to offer on-the-spot care and information about health-related topics. More and more companies focused on combining technology with healthcare are sprouting across the country in hopes of changing the playing field for the medical world.

Harvard Medical School is the next institution to incorporate the newfound benefits of the mobile world with its partnership with Orca Health and launch of its HeartDecide App and a series of interactive books.

Orca Health is a company dedicated to making healthcare more efficient and inexpensive in the wake of the technology revolution. It has merged its mobile, Web, and 3D engineering teams with physicians and dentists to create a symbiotic relationship to change the landscape of healthcare.  

Harvard Medical has joined forces with Orca Health to create an app to spark the beginning of a new way to for people to be educated about their own personal health. 

The HeartDecide App offers innovative 3D animations and videos of heart health content from Harvard Health Publications. It provides consumers with insider understandings of the heart’s function, problems that may occur and how to deal with certain conditions.  These multisensory learning products are intended to help patients fully understand their conditions and make informed healthcare decisions.

Another revolutionary healthcare solution is Healthspot Station, a private, walk-in kiosk that offers patients access to diagnoses and treatment by doctors. This videoconferencing platform and interactive digital device was enhanced by the help of Vidyo, the creators of the first commercially successful video conferencing system.

With this wave of technologically advanced companies and products, a revolution in healthcare could be on the horizon, heralded by the creation of the HeartDecide App and HealthSpot.

Four interactive iBooks are being launched along with the app and will provide information related to health conditions such as: atherosclerosis, angina, angioplasty, and cardiac catheterization. But this is just the beginning, as the app will be updated next month with six more additional iBooks.

As a prestigious educational institution like Harvard joins the ranks of the mHealth revolution, it is clear that the medical world is supporting this movement. Every day new advancements and partnerships, like Harvard and Orca, are being created to help improve the quality of patient care in effort to create a healthier world.

Who would have known a few years ago that the app world would spark a revelation for Harvard’s greatest thinkers?




Edited by Rich Steeves
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