One of the really interesting companies that I’ve seen at both the Digital Health Conference in NYC and now at the mHealth Summit in DC is a company called Force Therapeutics. This company is part of the Startup Health crew of companies and have a pretty interesting product for ensuring patient compliance using a really cool mobile and web based app.

Force Therapeutics is their first product which is focused on physical therapists which is a smart first step since the founder is a physical therapist. At its core, Force Therapeutics is an application where a physical therapist can “prescribe” exercises that need to be done by their patients. Those doing the exercises can log into the app and see the video demonstrating the exercise and then mark down whether they did the exercise or not. By having the video present during the exercise, it helps the patient to perform the exercise properly and then the physical therapist can know how well their patients are complying with the exercises they prescribed.

The app is available on the web or on the iPad and I believe Android. Plus, they offer a pretty cool online store where physical therapists can direct their patients to purchase the various products they need to do the physical therapy. I imagine that could be a nice revenue stream for Force Therapeutics and could be really convenient for physical therapists and patients.

Force Therapeutics also has a consumer version of their application available on the app store that could enable those interested in trying some physical therapy exercises without going to their doctor or the physical therapist. This feels wrong for many in the US who are so use to needing a doctors referral to go to physical therapy. Could be an interesting play for Force Therapeutics to help out with those aches and pains that we all have (and are getting more the older we get) that aren’t worthy of a doctor, but could benefit from some mild “therapy.” I’m sure this will have many doctors and physical therapists cringing a little bit, but whether it’s Force Therapeutics is used or some other app, there’s little doubt that patients will be doing this sort of self directed therapy anyway.

As I saw an app like Force Therapeutics, I could see it as a nice add on to EMR software. My only fear is that it feels more like a feature of an EMR software as opposed to a product unto its own. Although, I think Force Therapeutics has a chance for a number of different reasons.

First, I don’t see many EMR vendors really diving into this space. Sure, some might do some pieces of this, but they have so many things on their development plate that I think it’s unlikely for most EHR software vendors to develop these type of features.

Second, physical therapy is a space where EMR hasn’t gone very much. Sure, there’s WebPT, but most physical therapists are still in the paper world. The EHR incentive money passed over physical therapists and so it seems that many of them will continue sitting on the sidelines. That leaves a great opportunity for niche apps to satisfy the needs of these niche providers.

Plus, when I talked to the Force Therapeutics founder, I think that one of their biggest opportunities is outside the physical therapy space. Sure, it would be easy to expand Force Therapeutics into orthopedics or other medical specialty that wants to measure and support compliance in treatment. However, even more interesting to me is the idea of a Force Fitness type of app that focuses on trainers and exercise. When you start to think about trainers need to monitor their client’s exercise habits it makes a lot of since. In fact, if played right, Force Fitness could become a network that connects trainers with those interested in finding a personal trainer. Considering the amount of money spent on exercise each year, this is a really tremendous opportunity.

It’s still early in the life of something like Force Therapeutics, but it’s a pretty interesting little insight into the future of how various apps could impact healthcare. One of the panel speakers at the mHealth Summit said that there were 17,000 healthcare apps on the market today. I’m not sure where he got his number, but no matter how you slice it that’s a lot of healthcare apps. Multiply an app like Force Therapeutics by 17,000 and you can see there’s a sea of change happening in the mobile health space.

I think people have enjoyed a collection of my best tweets from the healthcare IT and EMR conferences I’ve been attending. If you don’t like them, let me know in the comments. I think they’re interesting since they’re nuggets of interesting topics. The following tweets come from the Digital Health Conference in New York. It’s been a really well attended event and includes a lot of the real health IT movers and shakers in the New York healthcare scene. Plus, they’ve had some really great content as well.

Here goes (with my comments after the tweet):

I’ll be interested to see http://t.co/EnvXwoJ5 evolve and start sharing clinical provider quality information. #dhc11

December 1, 2011 6:24 am via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

@ehrandhit

EMR, EHR and HIT

Healthcare.gov is an interesting site. Still too new to decide its impact though.

Todd Park highlighting all of the healthcare data that the government makes available in APIs. #dhc11

December 1, 2011 6:34 am via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

@ehrandhit

EMR, EHR and HIT

Todd Park did make a pretty compelling case for the healthcare data they’re going to make available from the government and it seems like they’re just getting started. I could see a lot of startups leverage that data in their companies. I wonder what assurance an entrepreneur will get that the data won’t get yanked.

Great example by Todd Park of how mobile health can change healthcare using the asthma example. #dhc11

December 1, 2011 6:53 am via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

@ehrandhit

EMR, EHR and HIT

Simple examples like this is why mobile health is so fascinating.

Standing O for Todd Park’s keynote at #dhc11

December 1, 2011 7:06 am via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

@ehrandhit

EMR, EHR and HIT

Todd Park really did do a great job. Attendees were commenting on how good he’d done all day. As Matthew Browning said, Practice Makes Perfect!

Standing room only for #dhc11 session on HIE event detection and provider notification. http://t.co/aE6rwRMW

December 1, 2011 8:27 am via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

@ehrandhit

EMR, EHR and HIT

Obviously a lot of interest in the HIE stuff and in the notifications that they can do.

Did I hear right that NYC metro area has 4 RHIOs? #dhc11 RHIO is HIE for those not familiar with RHIO

December 1, 2011 8:43 am via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

@ehrandhit

EMR, EHR and HIT

I know that NYC is large and has a lot of people, but I’m having a hard time understanding how it has 4 RHIO. Are there 4 regions in NYC? I’m sure there’s a long political story behind it.

Dr. Calman hits the nail on the head-tech. is an enabler, doesn’t provide context. #DHC11

December 1, 2011 8:25 am via LinkedInReplyRetweetFavorite

@PeachBytes5

Babette Peach

This is why we’ll always need doctors. It’s just how they do what they do that will change.

I love that people are talking about concern over being flooded with information when right now were not sending any info. #dhc11

December 1, 2011 8:51 am via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

@ehrandhit

EMR, EHR and HIT

Such a good point. If they were actually getting all that information then they’d have reason to complain. Although, we can’t make the systems filter the flood properly when there’s no flood.

I’d never heard @MatthewBrowning tell his @yournurseison story. Fun to hear. #dhc11 #HITStartups

December 1, 2011 11:27 am via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

@ehrandhit

EMR, EHR and HIT

Great funding story. I bet there’s even more to it than he shared. I’ll have to get him to share the rest some time.

We bring a little Rock n Roll rhythm to the slow dancing healthcare industry. -@matthewbrowning #dhc11

December 1, 2011 11:30 am via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

@ehrandhit

EMR, EHR and HIT

Great quote from Matthew. I don’t mind a little slow dancing, but the dance floor usually empties for the slow songs and is hopping with the rock songs. This is a pretty systemic problem in healthcare. I met one healthcare salesperson who said he was just contacted about a deal he’d worked on 3 years ago with a hospital. They contacted him to say that they’d finally closed the deal. Too bad this sales person is no longer at the company.

I’m currently on the long flight from Las Vegas to New York City. The early flight time and long flight remind me why I prefer to just stay in Las Vegas with the occasional west coast trip, but I digress. In order to not lose an entire day of work on the airplane, I spent far too much for the overpriced internet service on my flight. As I’m traveling at 30,000 feet, it’s amazing to me that I’m connected nearly as good as when I’m sitting at home. Sure, in flight internet has been around for quite a while, but it still amazes me. What will amaze me even more is when the internet is free on every flight. Maybe pharma ads could pay for this too.

While experiencing this amazing connectivity, I can’t help but think of how poor so much of the connectivity in healthcare is. That’s right. We can find a way to offer internet connectivity at 30,000 feet in an aircraft moving hundreds of miles per hour and yet we can’t get connectivity to rural hospitals and other healthcare locations?

Plus, even speaking more broadly, I can access all of my normal services from an airplane, but for some reason I have no way to connect all of my healthcare data together.

Those in the industry realize the problems. The challenge of connecting all of our healthcare data from the various EHR (or maybe in this case EMR is appropriate) data silos is an academic exercise that’s easily accomplished. Hit any of the interoperability showcases at HIMSS or other healthcare IT events and you’ll see EHR software vendors communicating with each other and sharing data. Why then can’t we make this a reality?

The challenges are still the same they’ve been for a long time now: funding and politics.

I still cringe to think of the missed opportunity that ARRA and the HITECH Act could have provided in this regard. Instead of incentivizing use of an EMR, they should have and could have incentivized interoperability of healthcare data. The great part is that you’re not going to start exchanging data in healthcare without an EHR so you’d be getting more EHR software adopted and interoperability. Water under a bridge now I guess, but it keeps eating at me.

My biggest hope now is that a grass roots movement will form that will drive what we should be doing anyway. Everyone knows and understands the benefits to healthcare and the patient of exchanging healthcare data. It’s easy to make the case for how patient care improves and how duplicate costs are avoided. We need more people that are willing to hop on board interoperability of healthcare data cause it’s the right thing to do. Sure, we need to do it in a smart and reasonable way, but the ROI of healthcare data exchange goes well beyond dollars and cents. This ROI can’t be put on a spreadsheet, but instead will help us all sleep better at night.

Are there any movements like this out there? I can’t say I’ve seen any, but I’d love to see one. Then, we’d have a real beacon community that’s set on a hill because it earned and deserved the recognition as opposed to beacon communities paid for by tax payers.

Side Note: I’ll be in NYC this week at the Digital Health Conference and at the mHealth Summit in DC next week. I’m already planning to meet a number of my readers at these events, but I’d love to meet more.

I know that many of my readers are from in and around New York. So, I’m really excited to let you know that I’ll be attending the Digital Health Conference in New York City on December 1-2, 2011. It’s shaping up to be a great event with keynotes from Todd park, CTO of the US HHS, and T.R. Reid, Journalist and Author for The Washington Post and PBS. Plus, they have tracks covering: Innovations in the Inpatient Setting, Advances in the Delivery of Primary Care, Chronic Care Management, and Health & Wellness.

One of the smartest things they’ve done is they’re offering up to 9.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™ That should bring a bunch of doctors to the event to get some more CME.

Plus, they’ve offered HealthcareScene.com readers a special discount: $200 off for non-providers and $50 off for providers. That’s only $195 and $145 respectively. I can’t remember the last healthcare IT conference I’ve seen that was that inexpensive. You’ll just need to use the discount code: HCS2011 to get those rates.

Of course, the real reason I go is to meet lots of interesting people. So, I hope that a lot of you make it to the event so I can meet more of you in person. I’m sure we’ll find one way or another to do a tweetup at the event. Plus, for those of you who can’t make it to the event, I’ll be tweeting about it on @techguy and @ehrandhit.

Here’s the full description of the Digital Health Conference Event:

New York eHealth Collaborative’s Digital Health Conference will bring together hundreds of health information technology (HIT) stakeholders and decision makers from across the region including providers of all types, the public sector, private industry, health plans, hospital administration, and others. The event will showcase the latest technologies, share best practices, inspire collaboration, and generally support the advancement of healthcare innovation.

Keynote Speakers

Todd Park, Chief Technology Officer, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

T.R. Reid, Best-selling author and healthcare journalist, The Washington Post, PBS

Conference Highlights

• Learn from industry thought-leaders through a series of lectures, panels, demonstrations and otherbreakout sessions in each of the following tracks:

• Innovations in the Inpatient Setting

• Advances in the Delivery of Primary Care

• Chronic Care Management

• Health & Wellness

• Programming features an impressive array of health IT experts from a number of different backgrounds, including private sector innovators, government agencies, providers of all types, and hospital IT leadership

• Network with hundreds of healthcare stakeholders and decision-makers from across the region

• Earn up to 9.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™*

• Connect with private and public sector innovators showcasing the latest healthcare technologies and innovations

To view the full program and to register, visit www.digitalhealthconference.com

*This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the Essential Areas and Policies of the Medical Society of the State of New York (MSSNY) through the joint sponsorship of MSSNY and New York eHealth Collaborative. MSSNY is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

The Medical Society of the State of New York designates this live activity for a maximum of 9.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.