The service is called BlueStar, and is the mobile version of the diabetes management program. What’s so monumental about this, is that it is the first disease therapy to be prescribed through an app. In addition to that, it is also the first that can be eligible for reimbursement through insurance. Not all insurance companies will cover it, but self-insured companies like Ford, Rite Aid, and DexCom have said BlueStar will become a part of their pharmacy coverage.

BlueStar features many of the same features that Diabetes Manager, the first WellDoc program, did which include getting alerts when their blood sugar level is too low or high and charts to detect trends. It suggests tips for getting blood sugar higher. However, what’s new is that BlueStar can provide feedback concerning medication dosage, give better coaching, and even recommendations to a doctor.

Just like any prescription, a doctor can prescibe BlueStar for a certain period of time in addition to medications. When a pharmacy receives that prescription, they will forward it on to WellDoc, who will have someone help the patient setup BlueStar on their device. BlueStar will calculate how much insulin a patient should take, depending on the attending physician’s recommendations, blood sugar levels, and how many carbs were eaten at a certain time. If a treatment regimen is deemed to be ineffective for a patient, a report will be sent to the doctor recommendation a new regimen.

Because diabetes truly affects so many across the country, this could mean a lot to many people. Of course, there are questions about how effective it can be, since many people may become unmotivated after using the app for a certain period of time. Time will only tell.

So what is S Health? Well, it was launched last year, and the newest version was released with the S4, optimized to work with some of the senors that are integrated into the S4. While the S Health has many similar features to other devices on the market, such as FitBit — including a built-in pedometer and diet tracking — it also has some features that are rather unique.

The feature that stood out most to me was the Comfort Level. It tells you what your comfort level is, by pulling in the ambient temperature and humidity of the room you are in. While I am not totally sure what the point of knowing this would be, it’s cool that it can do that. You can track all your progress in a variety of different charts, and sync it with third-party blood pressure and glucose monitors. All of these things combined seem like they would give you a pretty comprehensive look at your health profile.

Overall, I wouldn’t buy the Galaxy S4 just for this feature, but it is a nice added bonus. If you already have a smart phone that works well for you, I’d go with a less expensive option for a wearable a device, rather than shelling out the cash for this. It also sounds like they have some more things in the work for S Health, so be on the lookout for that in the future!

Of all the wearable devices out there, do you have a favorite?

By now, it might seem like I’m border-line obsessed with Health Tap, especially because today, I’m going to share with you their latest feature called Doctor Mom. This company just seems to be really innovative, and is churning out awesome services like crazy. However, I think this is definitely my favorite concept yet.

When you ask a question at Doctor Mom, the question is assigned to doctor, who also happens to be a mom who has raised children of her own. The website lists the following benefits of this program:

• Emphathetic, compassionate, and caring answers
• “Been there, done that” answers based on personal knowledge and experience
• The ability to dive deeper into women’s issues

These doctors know what it is like to be pregnant and to have a child. I’m sure the majority of them have seen many different illnesses, and talked to many paranoid parents. And because of that, they are able to connect better with moms. I’m not saying that male doctors can’t show empathy and be great doctors — my primary care physician, and my son’s pediatrician, both of which I love, are males. But I still love this idea. 

I know I’m always texting my mom or sisters and asking them questions about my son, even though most of the time I know they don’t really have an answer. It’s just nice to get reassurance from someone that has “been there.”  However, I look forward to using this service in the feature!

Most challenges provide a prize for some goal and then teams of people get together to create a product or service that helps achieve that goal. In the BlueButton CoDesign Challenge they’re starting by asking patients the question, “Build me a Blue Button-enabled tool that….” So far 74 ideas have been submitted as answers to that question. Hundreds of comments have been added on each idea and thousands have voted on which idea has the most potential.

I do have some concern with how they’re doing the voting. I think it’s a mistake to display how many votes each idea has, because then it skews people’s future vote. The same goes for listing the top ideas on the home page. That encourages the casual visitor to just vote on the top ideas which gives the top ideas an unfair advantage. Plus, if someone like me tweets out my idea and gets my followers to vote for me, then I automatically skew to the top page. In fact, this voting reminds me a bit of the upper right quadrant syndrome that Jonathan Bush talked about at TEDMED.

Of course, there are always issues when you deal with voting. However, I love the idea of getting the patient crowd involved in sharing their ideas of how to make healthcare better. For example, e-Patient Dave offered this great idea on managing the pills you take. He’s right that all of the data is there, so why hasn’t someone built it? The answer is likely that it’s not the focus of the people that have the data. This is why EHR APIs are so important.

Just reading through the list of ideas is quite inspiring. I’ll be interested to see which ideas win and if any developers jump on board to build those ideas. The problem with most people is that they’d rather build their own ideas than someone else’s.

I saw a commercial today for a website called Lumosity.com. It sparked my interest, so I decided to check it out. The website says that it “turns neuroscience breakthroughs into fun, effective games” and it’s a way to “harness your brains neuroplasticity [the brain's ability to grow and expand] and train your way into a brighter life.”

To be honest, it seems like it is set up a bit like an exercise website. When you sign up, you answer some questions about where you want changes to be made. Changes can be made in any of five categories, all of which have subcategories. These categories are memory, attention, speed, flexibility, and problem solving. You can select as many or as few of these categories as you want. After doing this, you can create an account and view your free and personalized training program, and you can personalize your training even further.

The program changes with you — as you get better at the challenges, you get newer ones. Each of the “sessions” include a variety of games to help you improve in the areas you initially selected. You get points very every game you do, to help you track your progress. The games are actually pretty fun, and challenging, and scientifically developed to help increase your brain function.

The basic version of Lumosity is free, but if you really want to get into the program, there are paid options. This gives you more games each day, more personalized training, and more. People spend hundreds, maybe even thousands, on personal training at a gym, as well as countless hours…so why not spend some of those valuable resources on making sure your brain is in tip-top shape? I thought this was a cool idea, and I think it could be a great resources for anyone wanting to exercise their mind. Apparently, 97% of Lumosity users improve after just 10 hours of training (which can be seen in the personalized tracking portion of the website.)_

Lumosity Brain Trainer is also available as a free download for iOS devices.

The article suggested taking photos of prescription bottles, so you don’t forgot the name of your prescription, or the prescription number. When I saw this, I started thinking about what other health-related things you could take pictures of. This, in fact, could be the simplest way to create a portable PHR.

So what are some things you could take photos of to store on your phone in case of an emergency? Here are a few ideas I came up with:

• Picture of insurance card. Awhile back when we went to an Urgent Care clinic, we were asked to check-in using Phreesia. Instead of giving our insurance card, we just had to type in our insurance id number. I’m notorious for misplacing insurance cards, so if I ran into a situation like this, all would not be lost, if I had a copy of the insurance card on my phone!
• Photos of medicine: As was suggested in the article that prompted this post, taking a photo of any bottles of medicine you have to take would be helpful as well. There have been several times that I’ve called a pharmacy while I’ve been out and about, and they’ve asked for my prescription number. Of course, I never know it. But having a photo with that information would be helpful. It might also be helpful to take picture of medicine you need to buy at the store.
• Along the same lines, having an updated photo with any medications you or your child is currently taking. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve been at a doctor and they ask what medication my son or I had been on recently, and I totally forget.
• Emergency contacts. Obviously, you can store emergency contacts in your address book, but this would be a good way to make it so you don’t have to go scrolling through your contacts…especially when there actually is an emergency, where things can be hectic. This would also be an easy way to send numbers and names to someone else, in case that was necessary. It would be a lot easier to send one photo, rather than trying to copy and paste different phone numbers.
• If you can have different folders of albums on your phone, you could store all these in one labeled “health” or “emergency.

There are a lot of apps that could probably do these same things, but for those that want to make things as simple as possible — I think this is a good route. There are obviously some downsides — mainly, it isn’t a secure way to store information. But it’s an interesting way to store information that you need to get to quickly. Can you think of any other snapshots that might be helpful to have?

The response to this comment is usually a bit of disbelief around people not caring about their health. The problem is that people do want to be healthy. However, they don’t want to worry about their health all the time. This quote from the amazing Susannah Fox added the nuance that I was always missing in my comment about patients not caring.

well said! RT @artohline: “Quick answer, most people don’t want to care about their health every day.” -@susannahfox #hdpalooza

— Simon Sikorski, M.D. (@SimonSikorskiMD) June 4, 2013

People do care about their health, but they don’t want worrying about their health to rule their life. Of course, chronic conditions are another story. For the majority of patients that are healthy or at least “feel” healthy, they aren’t motivated to improve their health daily. This is the challenge that healthcare app developers face. Overcoming it is a real challenge.

AppRx is a directory of apps that have been recommended and reviewed by some of the world’s leading physicians. If you’ve ever tried looking through apps, it can be hard to figure out which ones should be trusted. Because, not all health apps should be regarded as so.

It’s a simple idea, but one that I think is long overdue. I just checked it out, and it looks like it is very easy to navigate. You can search for specific apps, or select from a variety of categories. There are 23 different categories, that cover everything from ab workouts to mental health to pregnancy. You can even set it to show just iOS compatible apps or Android compatible apps. To be honest, I think that’s one of my favorite features! Back when I only had an Android device, I got so frustrated when I was searching for a certain kind of app, and only iOS apps would show up.

You can also sign up for a newsletter, which sends you an app of the week — this weekly publication highlights a certain app that comes highly recommended from physicians. So if you want to try out new apps that already have the seal of approval from a physician, this might be a good newsletter to subscribe to!

I am excited to use this website — not only for my personal use, but to help find apps to write about on here! There are already some app certification programs in the works, such as Happtique, but until apps start getting the mark of approval from that, AppRx is a great alternative. I use Health Tap a decent amount, and I do trust that information I get from there, so it will be nice to have this additional resource.

Did you know that many strokes go unnoticed? While yes, many times a stroke can be very severe, and even cause death, they aren’t always diagnosed as so. I’ve heard one too many times about someone who has been struggling from different health problems, specifically with their memory, only to find out they had suffered several mini strokes.

Not immediately diagnosing these strokes aren’t always the doctor’s fault – they can be difficult to diagnose. According to the Techpage article, between 50 and 70 thousand stroke victims are being diagnosed (and treated) for ear problems instead.

One of the ways to diagnose a stroke is through eye-movement tests. This can help to separate those who are experiencing ear problems or vertigo from those actually suffering a stroke. These tests can be better for identifying a stroke than doing an immediate MRI, however, they can be difficult to administer. That’s where the goggles suggested by a team at Johns Hopkins could prevent the misdiagnosis of nearly 10,000 strokes a year.

David Newman-Toker, professor of neurology at John Hopkins, has been heading up the group discussing these goggles. They would be “equipped with a high-speed webcam to record eye movements and an accelerometer to track movements.”

Although I don’t think these goggles have been created yet, it looks like it is definitely well on its way to production. Perhaps the creators of Google Glasses could work with Johns Hopkins, and create a superior product that could be used for this purpose – and maybe for other health related purposes. My paternal grandmother died from complications from a stroke, and my maternal grandmother suffered many mini-strokes that went undiagnosed for awhile, which have contributed to her dementia. Strokes are definitely serious, no matter how big or small they are, and these glasses could potentially save the lives (or the quality of life) of so many.)

T1: Mobile apps like iChemoDiary can help cancer patients keep track of their symptoms and side effects during treatment #mhealth #HITsm

— HIT Lab (@HITLabNYC) May 24, 2013

Although I don’t have cancer, and hope never to, many people that I know have been diagnosed with some kind of cancer. Because of this, I was interested in learning more about this app and see what it had to offer.

When you have cancer and are undergoing chemotherapy, it’s important to pay close attention to any symptoms or side effects that you may experience, as well stay on track with treatment. iChemoDiary makes that process a little bit easier, by giving several options to users for tracking this information. You can track your schedule, medicines that are being taken, and access your treatment plan easily.

In addition, the app allows you to track which symptoms you should be watching out for, and take notes throughout the day. Reports can be created concerning anything that you recorded in the app.

This app seems like an easy way to track chemotherapy treatment, and easily share the information with doctors and nurses. It’s free to download, and looks pretty easy to use. I think it would be nice to have an app dedicated to keeping track of this information, rather than having to worry about remembering the details, or carrying around a notebook everywhere you go. Similar to using a  food diary, sometimes it’s just easier to have something that is easily accessible and created solely for this puprose.

Are there any other apps available for people that are undergoing chemotherapy, or who have been diagnosed with cancer?

Download here for iOS devices.