iTriage is a mobile app that helps users understand, prioritize their acute health-related symptoms and seek appropriate and close-by care. Its service is also available on the web at iTriageHealth. At the core is a symptom-checker that lets users do a high-level categorization of what could be wrong with them, and how serious/not can it be. That functionality is nothing special, since there are...
Lately everything I find interesting has something to do with mobile platform. "mHealth" is the buzzword for it. Seems like most of new patient-oriented healthcare IT ideas have been conceived on the premise that mobile phones plays a key role in health-related data input and/or visualization. Or it could be that I'm just biased and need to look for news in other places 🙂 Child Count is an...
Text4baby is a service that delivers periodic text messages to expecting mothers reminding them of basic healthcare needs. It's a free mobile information service designed to promote healthy pregnancy, and given that US that the second worst IMR of all developed countries, it makes sense. Women who sign up for the service by texting BABY to 511411 will receive free (i.e. not charged to the...
Around 1989, Steven Schueler started working on a computer program that could perform symptom triage. The intent was to create something that patients could use to safely decide what to do when they were sick. In 1990, his company DSHI Systems released “Home Medical Advisor” on a floppy disk. Later it was issued on CD-ROM’s, and claims to have sold over 2 million copies over the years. A major...
Here is a half-baked idea that adds another data point to my rant about how keeping a record of health-related activities is useful, and how web 2.0 technologies can help enable such a record. Bedpost is a web application (currently in private beta) that helps in keeping track of user's sex life. I've not used the site myself, but they claim simple functionality- log in after the fact and fill...
RememberItNow is an online medication reminder service. Once you enter the pill information (what, when) it can send email/text reminder messages at the right time. Also included are some features around access control , scheduling, charting, journal etc. The site was inspired by a true story, and I agree that we can do better by utilizing web technology for medication adherence. But I'm not...
CareFlash has an interesting take on social networking for patients. It lets you create a private, secure website to inform and update your family/friends about your medical condition- an online 'community' of sorts. Good concept. Having an invite-only, private community helps everyone to stay current with latest developments about the health of someone they love, without everyone calling and...
Vitals is a physician search and rating destination. The fact that we need such tools is indisputable, although there are a plethora of sites that claim to have this ability now (DrScore, RateMDs, HealthcareReviews, HealthGrades, DoctorScorecard to name a few) . Which is part of the reason why none of them is successful enough to be the ultimate source of such information. Board certification,...
ZocDoc is a free service that allows patients to book Doctor appointments online in New York City. It started in September 2007 as a service to help people find and make dentist appointments in NYC, and has now includes other specialties too (like primary care, dermatologist, ENT, ortho, OB/GYN, allergist, podiatrist, etc.) Patients get to use the site for free- looking up physicians that...
While we wait for President Obama's public plan, the 46 million uninsured Americans need some options. Healdeal aims to bring the free market model to healthcare as one of them. The goal is to provide a marketplace for self-pay (uninsured) individuals to connect and transact with providers registered on the website. There is scope for such services, for sure. There are significant number of...