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...
Of all the consumer healthcare device ideas, this may be the most ingenious one. In August 2009, Massachusetts-based Vitality announced availability of GlowCaps- a web-enabled $99 cap for prescription bottles that helps remind patients to take their medications on time. GlowCaps fits the standard pill container, and uses short-range wireless communication to talk to a gateway hub at home that is...
Zume Life is a San Jose start-up that is planning to develop its own dedicated device to allow individuals to keep track of and manage their own care regimen. It's target users are individuals with complex care requirements- taking a multiple medications, specific diets, frequent measurements, daily exercise etc. What they offer is a 'Zumi Life Service' that helps coordinate the logistics of...
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...
In their own words 'Psych Central is the Internet's largest and oldest independent mental health social network'. From what I can find, it seems to be true. They have been online since 1995, and last year got close to half a million unique visitors. So consider it as the social network that started before the age of social networking. It now offers blogs, forums, reviews, news, feeds, tweets and...
Usually I'm wary of putting time into big-budget health portals, but San Francisco based Healthline deserves a mention. They have a portfolio of healthcare search, navigation and content that is syndicated through a growing network of big web properties like AARP, Health.com, iVillage, AOL etc. Healthline was founded in 1999 as YourDoctor.com and was re-launched as Healthline Networks in 2005....
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...
CureTogether was started in July 2008 as a way for patients to aggregate their anonymous medical data into an open-source database that can be used by any researcher in the world. They started with three conditions - migraine, endometriosis, and vulvodynia but now count more than 400 on their radar. There are plenty of precedents to social networking websites for patients, so nothing new from...
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 the conventionalists argue otherwise, there is some truth to the fact that plenty of health conditions can be taken care of without actually seeing the patient in-person. Based on that assumption, AmericanWell offers an interactive service that lets patients talk to a physician in real time, anytime. The service went live in January this year and initially focusing on Hawaii. The basic...