The beginning of a new year always inevitably leads to a lot of predictions, Predictions like the world is coming to an end this year to predictions in form of resolution, Few believable, few outrageously unbelievable. Healthcare is no stranger to this syndrome; there were a lot of prediction in terms of the disease patters for the next Year, Prediction in terms of newer Technology and also various policies which is likely to get implemented.

One of the many predictions for technology adoption is the penetration of mobile in the field of Healthcare. Almost all those who predicted the future of the role of technology in healthcare spoke about mobile making inroads to an unimaginable extent.  Current statistics states that majority of the Doctors have moved to Smart phones and access information through Smart phones.

Doctors currently use smart phones to access drug references, Disease information, Clinical Dictionary and other reference information apart from their general internet Usage.  Gradually with the number of Mobile application to access patient information growing, the adoption of it is also increasing and it is a No brainer that this is already the next big wave in patient care and also the most watch space.

Having said all this I have gone through the market and have done some study on the various classification of the application and tried to analyze how to give the ‘larger than life’ factor to these applications so that people developing this could think beyond the routine.

I have divided the majority of the applications and have put them in various buckets and have come up with 7 classifications based on the functionality. The 7 are as below

  1. Real-time Patient Analytics
  2. M prescription and Tracking
  3. Connected Scheduling
  4. Personal Health management
  5. Image analytics
  6. M EHR
  7. Mobile Change Capture

Now for the Larger than Life picture

1.   Real-time Patient Analytics

Traditionally, Doctors and the Centralized Nursing stations in Intensive care units monitored the vitals of the patient on an ongoing manner, however with the help of web applications, Doctors could monitor this from his consultation Room, however with the Mobile app, now the Doctors could monitor various parameters of the patient from any remote location.

This combined with data entry also could be of great advantage not only for care delivery also where ever the nurse user needs to Make home visit to monitor patients.

2.  M prescription and Tracking

The doctors could use this application to prescribe and patients to view the prescription. The traditional Application combined with notification and remainder Functionality could remind and Track the Drug intake pattern and also could trigger auto Refills based on the Re-order level set by the user. The scanning functionality within the system could verify the and update the receipt of the medication and also could avoid counterfeit.

3.  Connected Scheduling

Connected Scheduling is a functionality where the physician and connect with the physician and the patients with other Fellow Patients, to share their views, opinions and Feedbacks. How easy would it be if the doctor could view all the appointments in their native calendar itself and could perform all actions there? And for the patients if their appointment is canceled, the mobile suggests an alternate doctor who has an appointment slot available in the same vicinity in the said time. This combined with the Phones notification service could make sure the patient never misses his appointment.

4.  Personal Health management

Overburdened hospitals and increase in the chronic cases lead to emphasis on home Health care, which has paved way for home monitoring and thus Mobile Health Management plays a vital role in it. This could be a simple exercise management or Disease management software or could be a more complex Device integration software.

Geo specific alerts could be handy when the user with a specific condition is travelling, Like if a Person with known pollen allergy travels to a place which is known for pollen allergen, the system could alert the user to be careful, or being integrated with the weather application the system would warn of the outside temperature is cold especially if the person is asthmatic.

5. Image analytics

Moving from a traditional Radiology viewer to a mobile viewer enhances ability for the doctor to take quick decisions, Use the traditional functionality of the phone like the touch screen to perform tasks, standard tools such as zoom, pan, window, and level and display of volumetric data with multi-planar reconstruction. A little more complex functionality like annotation, measure distance and intensity values, and display regions of interest makes it a sort after application.

6.  M-EHR

From a Web-based EMR to a Mobile based point of care EMR tablets have always played a vital role in transforming Healthcare delivery. From a more traditional looking application to a better looking and highly usable application combined with the features like touch, Swipe etc, the bedside tablets or physicians personal tablets ate increasingly used to access patient record while treating them.

7.    Mobile Change Capture

It’s all about money Honey!! and any solution which helps the accuracy of capturing treatment only has a direct increases claims turnaround and faster claims reimbursement. Bedside charge capture will only increase the accuracy of the treatment and what could be better in the Bedside than a Mobile or a Tablet.

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