Medical apps struggle on uneven path

In theory, most people agree that digitizing medical records and making them available through online apps would be a good thing. Faster, cheaper, clearer. But a series of recent articles show that it isn't always working out that way.

Take, for instance, CodeHeart, "a mobile application to speed diagnosis of heart attacks, has been under development in this area for two years." Rather than faxing a diagnosis to a cardiologist, or worse, carrying an EKG printout along with a patient to a hospital, CodeHeart would send the data by mobile phone within seconds.

In practice, however, the app and its promoters have found that mobile phones are often unreliable and they're "...still struggling to enlist emergency medical crews' participation for a pilot project."

Patients, on the other hand, show an increasing enthusiasm for online medicine. "Early last year, PEW Research was already reporting that 17 percent of mobile phone users were using their devices to look up health and medical information, and Juniper recently estimated that 44 million health apps were downloaded in 2011."

And, a recent study involving thousands of patients and more than a hundred physicians in three large practices, revealed that people want to read their doctor's notes - transcribed for reading on a mobile device or computer. Said the study, "patient enthusiasm extended across age, education, and health status..."

However, moving away from paper records, and finding a doctor-patient consensus that allows easy access, has been hard. Practitioners often want to retain some control over their notes, and not all patients, despite the above study, will take the time and effort to interpret physician notes. Moreover, the FDA is still studying the range of apps. "In order to balance patient safety with innovation, it is important for the FDA to provide manufacturers and developers of mobile medical applications with a clear and predictable outlines of our expectations." The FDA received manufacturer guidance and feedback in 2011, and is expected to arrive at regulations sometime in 2012.

So, the problems remain: technological, regulatory and social. Maybe someday we'll all be able to access records easily, but that day hasn't arrived.

D.C. cardiologist develops mobile app to speed diagnosis of heart attacks (Washington Post, Jan. 12, 2012)

Mobile Technology Is Transforming The Health Industry, But To What Extent? (TechCrunch, Jan. 16, 2012)

Mobile Healthcare and Medical App Downloads to Reach 44 Million Next Year, Rising to 142 Million in 2016 (Juniper research, Nov. 29, 2011)

Inviting Patients to Read Their Doctors' Notes ((Annals of Internal Medicine, Dec. 20, 2011)

Mobile Medical Applications (FDA website)
http://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/ProductsandMedicalProcedures/ucm255978.htm