HealthTap Release “TipTaps” – Health Tips From Professionals

While I don’t normally advocate turning to the Internet with health questions, Health Tap might be the exception. It’s like the Yahoo Answers of healthcare, except it’s actual doctors responding to the questions, rather than just any random person with an Internet connection. There are over 32,000 doctors across the United States that are participating, and making it easier for people to get health information at home.

Health Tap has just introduced a new feature to help further its goal to have a positive impact on the health of people. TipTaps, the new program, are little tidbits of health knowledge that incorporate pictures, and are created by some of the best doctors in the world.

The health tips are about 100 characters. They focus on more than 50 topics, and written by doctors who specialized in them. Unlike some programs that only send the messages through text, TipTaps can be delivered to any mobile device, or even just to email, and can be easily shared with social networks.

The messages can be received as often as a person wants, and are personalized for a person’s lifestyle, and what time of day they come at. Some example TipTaps are:

  • Managing Stress at Work: Too much stress? Breathe in for 4 counts, hold for 7, exhale for 8. Do 4 times. Anywhere. Anytime.
  • Lunch: Want to eat smaller portions? Try using a bowl instead of a plate.
  • Breakfast: Don’t skip a healthy breakfast. Eat whole grains and protein to fuel a productive day!

As I mentioned, each TipTap has some kind of graphic that comes along with it.

It sounds like an interesting idea. I know that I’m not a huge fan of getting random notifications to my phone or email like this, but I’m sure that people that like to be encouraged throughout the day would like this. If you can select which categories you get sent, that would be cool.

To see more examples of TipTaps, view this PDF. If you’d like to sign up, you can subscribe here. It definitely looks like a high quality program — I wouldn’t expect anything less from HealthTap.

About the author

Katie Clark

Katie Clark is originally from Colorado and currently lives in Utah with her husband and son. She writes primarily for Smart Phone Health Care, but contributes to several Health Care Scene blogs, including EMR Thoughts, EMR and EHR, and EMR and HIPAA. She enjoys learning about Health IT and mHealth, and finding ways to improve her own health along the way.

   

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