Apple – Fundamentally Changing the Delivery of Healthcare
By Andrew LaVanway
Twitter: @MeriTalk
LinkedIn: Profile
Among the teeming masses wandering the 537,000 square feet of HIMSS 2014, the buzz isn’t about EHR, MU2, or ICD-10 (though some of the grumbling at the bar is). The 35,000 attendees aren’t talking about many of the 1,233 exhibitors either; at least not once they have locked down the hot party invites. Even HRC, who practically invented the modern yelling match called healthcare reform, doesn’t own the buzz.
Who does? Apple.
Forget for a moment that everyone at the Orange County Convention Center is texting on their iPhone while taking session notes on (or occasionally recording with) their iPads while reviewing session slides on their MacBooks. Forget that you could walk from one end of the conference to the other on the iPads given away at HIMSS. Forget that the iPhone is a massively popular consumer device that is younger than the average visiting princess at the Magic Kingdom around the corner.
Apple is fundamentally changing the delivery of healthcare. Look at the iPhone. Caregivers are:
- Snap collaborating on the fly with FaceTime
- Using HIPAAText to share instant information bits securely
- Taking pictures to make better home care diagnoses. “The regular camera app works just fine”
The iPad? Even if just for Epocrates and its immediate drug interaction data, iPads have earned a place at many bedsides. But that is just the 101 class. Here are just a few examples of the next level:
- 201: EHRs – download Cerner’s Ambulatory to minimize the barrier that EHRs are increasingly creating between the doctor and the patient
- 301: Patient Engagement – bring it to the bedside to visually explain to the patient (and the family) what is going on. Improve understanding, make the patient buy in, and get better outcomes
- 401: Upload a rehabilitation plan onto an iPad and give it to the patient. Gamify the rehab program, upload the results, and dramatically reduce both the duration of post-operative care and the readmission rate
People are talking about it even when they aren’t. Patient engagement, care coordination, human factors, consumer health, HIPAA, telehealth, you can’t have an informed discussion on any of these topics without Apple popping up.
Also, the chairman of my radiology department wants one, so…
Innovation in healthcare. Apparently, there’s an app for that.
About the Author: Andrew LaVanway provides government budget and policy insight for MeriTalk. A former House Appropriations staffer, LaVanway has been active at the intersection of government and technology since 1996. This article was originally published on MeriTalk and is republished here with permission.