Smart Phones Apps Help Doctors Track Your Health
Reported November 01, 2009
HOUSTON – A Houston-based hospital system is getting international recognition for putting technology into the hands of its doctors.
The Memorial Hermann Healthcare System has aggressively adapted the Apple iPhone to its needs. And ultra-hip Apple, in turn, has put Memorial Hermann in its cyberspace spotlight.
Apple.com now features an article on how Memorial Hermann OB-GYN Dr. Marco Giannotti uses a new iPhone application called Airstrip OB.
The “app” allows the doc’s iPhone to display medical notes and real-time vital signs on all his patients as they approach delivery.
“So literally I’m seeing what the nurse is seeing at the bedside,” Giannotti says, his phone displaying a chart of fetal heart-rate and maternal contractions.
“And if I turn it sideways like this,” he flicks his finger along the display, revealing blips from twenty or forty minutes earlier, “I can just scroll back and instantly get a record of everything that’s happened.”
“We’re absolutely in a new age of medicine,” says Memorial Hermann Chief Medical Informatics Officer Robert Murphy, MD. “This is medicine in the age of information.”
Murphy shows off another “app” that can help ER doctors, for example, if an unconscious patient comes in with a pocketful of pills.
He chooses “white” from a menu, denoting the pills’ color; he selects “scored” if they have a score-mark down the middle.
The app then displays photos of a small number of medications that fit the description.
“Just with that kind of information, I can view matches very quickly on the phone.”
“As medicine evolves,” says Giannotti, “we’re always trying to use the technology ultimately to better patient care.”
