Posted: 13 Apr 2011 08:56 AM PDT
There’s a contagious outbreak at hospitals across the US.
A rapidly growing number of hospitals and medical clinics are developing and releasing their own unique dedicated mobile applications.
OhioHealth of Columbus, Ohio is the latest hospital facility to go mobile with its own smartphone application.
According to Tech Life Ohio, the app in question is a women’s health application designed to help patients easily connect with their obstetric and gynecological caregivers.
“This is something that empowers patients to be more informed when they arrive for their office visits,” said OB/GYN Andrew Bokor, MD, Grant Medical Center.
Dr. Bokor now offers the application to his patients
“It links them to our office phones, provides directions to the hospitals where we deliver and gives them information 24/7 at their fingertips about the stages of fetal development or common pregnancy-related problems such as hemorrhoids. I don’t think there is any way it won’t improve quality of women’s health care and outcomes,” Dr. Bokor says.
“So many people are going to the web for health care information that is not always reliable, where it is hard to tell the difference between fact and opinion,” says Dr. Mini Somasundaram. “The application guarantees accurate, evidence-based answers to questions such as, ‘what kind of medications can I take’ or ‘what kind of test am I supposed to have next week.’
Approximately five dozen patients began testing the mobile app last month. OhioHealth physicians anticipate promoting the app to all of its obstetric patients by the end of April.
This type of application just makes so much sense. Like the doctor pointed out, the first place people go to look for information is the internet, so why not provide your patients with the information so you know they are getting good stuff.
I know my wife and I looked all over the place and talked to everyone about the different stages of pregnancy and what was okay when. It would have saved us a lot of time, and stress, if we could have gotten it straight from our doctor.
I would expect apps like this to become extremely common in the near future as people realize the good it can do.
