Health Care Quality Improvement: There’s an App for That

Article by Martha Hostetter  in Quality Matters – The Commonwealth Fund

Providers have proven eager adopters of health care “apps,” the software applications used on cell phones and other mobile devices to perform specific tasks, such as charting data points or aggregating information. Apps can be easily integrated into providers’ workflow, delivering information when and where they need it. Disease management apps, in particular, can improve communication between patients and providers and promote adherence to recommended care. Still, for apps to achieve their potential to improve health care quality, they will need to be factored into reimbursement models and meet clear clinical needs.

Billions in federal incentive payments are being used to encourage hospitals and other health care organizations to use electronic health record systems (EHRs). Meanwhile, without much prompting, providers have proven eager adopters of health care “apps,” the software applications used on cell phones or tablet computers to perform specific tasks, such as charting data points or aggregating information.¹ A recent survey of 4,000 physicians found that nearly 80 percent use smartphones capable or running apps—a far greater proportion than among the general public.² Another report estimates that by 2012 about half of physicians who have smartphones will use them in their work for administrative functions, research, and patient care.

Part of the reason apps appeal to physicians while EHRs may not is that apps are easily integrated into their workflow—delivering information when and where they need it. Moreover, most apps are flexible enough to run on a variety of different mobile devices, which many physicians already own.

“Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center has 1,000 physicians using their own iPads because they give them pleasure, they are useable, and they work for them,” says Farzad Mostashari, M.D., Sc.M., the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ national coordinator for health information technology. “This kind of bottom-up embrace of technology is not mutually exclusive with a hospital’s need for enterprise-wide, secure clinical information systems.”            >>>> Read More

Source : Quality Matters The Commonwealth Fund Blog Oct/Nov Newsletter 2011

¹ Health care providers’ growing use of health care apps is part of a larger trend toward mobile health care delivery, in which providers rely on wireless Internet connections, portable computers, portable medical devices, and other mobile tools to communicate with patients and other providers and to deliver care.

² Nineteen percent of physicians use a tablet personal computer in their work, while 69 percent said they are likely to do so in the next few years. Only 5 percent of the U.S. population owns a tablet. In contrast to the 80 percent of physicians who own smartphones, only about 28 percent of the U.S. population has one.

Tags: electronic health records, health news, Mobile Apps, Safety and Quality, Uncategorized