Improving Patient Care with iPhone

With thousands of doctors, nurses, and administrators, the Memorial Hermann Healthcare System depends on the latest mobile technologies to streamline its services and deliver better patient care. iPhone and state-of-the-art medical apps like AirStrip OB let Memorial Hermann physicians keep their fingers on patients’ pulses even when they can’t be at their bedsides.

Based in Houston, TX, the fourth-largest city in the U.S., Memorial Hermann serves a metro area of more than five million people, providing everything from air ambulance services to a chemical dependency treatment center.

“Health care is a very real-time business,” says David Bradshaw, Chief Information, Planning, and Marketing Officer at Memorial Hermann Healthcare System. “We need anywhere, anytime computing, and iPhone is the best platform for the applications we’re choosing.”

Secure Access to Medical Data

With its built-in support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, iPhone fits in flawlessly with Memorial Hermann’s existing infrastructure. “For me, that tight integration with Microsoft Exchange is very important,” says Dr. Robert Murphy, Memorial Hermann’s Chief Medical Informatics Officer.

“It’s as if you had the Outlook client on your iPhone,” Bradshaw agrees. “Accepting meetings, looking at email and attachments, downloading spreadsheets. It’s seamlessly integrated into our Exchange network.”

iPhone security features such as remote wipe and passcode protection keep patient information confidential while remaining transparent to users. “The security technology is absolutely not in question,” Dr. Murphy says. “Our security team has looked at the iPhone, and it not only meets the standards, it exceeds the standards.”

Physicians Gain Efficiency

The simple iPhone interface and Multi-Touch technology let busy doctors get up to speed quickly. “The phone itself is very intuitive — you don’t need an instruction manual,” says obstetrician/gynecologist Dr. Marco Giannotti.

And with hundreds of medical apps available, iPhone becomes an instant pocket reference for everything from anatomical charts to diagnostic tools, allowing clinicians the freedom to create their own application workflows.

iPhone gives doctors “the right information at the right moment,” adds Dr. Murphy. “Having that information available right at the point of care, you feel more confident in your decision-making.”

Medical Apps Deliver

The iPhone advantage is highlighted by apps like AirStrip OB, which enables obstetricians to monitor different stages of labor even when they’re not by a patient’s side. Developed by AirStrip Technologies, AirStrip OB links individual mobile devices to a central AirStrip server with HIPAA-compliant authentication, giving obstetricians remote access to live views of delivery room data — including fetal heart tracings, contraction patterns, vital statistics and nursing notes.

“AirStrip OB is an absolutely indispensable app on iPhone,” Dr. Giannotti says. “It fundamentally changes the way I’m able to interact with labor and delivery. In a tenth of the time, without pulling a nurse away from what she’s doing, I get all the real-time data I need at the touch of a button.”

The option of viewing heart tracings in landscape mode distinguishes iPhone from other devices, and makes AirStrip OB an even better tool for obstetricians. “It’s just off the chart how doctors who have iPhones are using AirStrip OB, compared to those who don’t,” Bradshaw observes.

Better Care via iPhone

With secure remote access to clinical data, must-have medical apps, and an interface that makes it easy to view and interpret key information, iPhone is clearly helping to improve health care at Memorial Hermann.

“There’s no question that iPhone is making a difference in how patients are cared for,” Bradshaw says. “Especially the ability to keep clinicians in constant contact with patients and the actual care setting. It’s all about them delivering on why they went to school and became a doctor or a nurse. iPhone simply helps us deliver patient care in a more efficient, productive manner.”

Temp Tattoos Get Medical: Removable Diagnostic Patches

Temp Tattoos Get Medical: Removable Diagnostic Patches

Seeing someone in a hospital bed after an illness or injury is hard enough, but the seemingly endless machines and monitors all over that person can be very alarming. A new kind of electronic skin patch can let doctors and hospitals monitor patients’ conditions without the need for all of that intrusive and scary machinery. The patches are similar to temporary tattoos, being simple to apply, non-invasive and totally removable. The Epidermal Electronic System would measure heart, brain and muscle activity and send the data to doctors wirelessly. Conveying the same information to docs currently requires a mess of wires, some intimidating beeping machinery and sloppy conductive gel.
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The EES was developed by researchers at the University of Illinois who say that the sensors could be used for a wide variety of monitoring applications. Not just keeping track of muscle and heart activity – the patches can also be placed on a throat to read the wearer’s speech. In lab tests, the patch recognized the words being spoken by the patch wearer around 90% of the time. For now the EES is powered by integrated solar cells, but in the future as the system becomes more complex it may require inductive charging. However it’s powered, the awesome patch could go a long way toward making the hospital experience a little less scary.

In the Blood: Next-Gen Diabetic Glucose Testing Device

In the Blood: Next-Gen Diabetic Glucose Testing Device

For diabetics, pricking the finger or forearm to check blood glucose levels day after day can be painful, annoying and inconvenient. This gadget – the Photonic Glucose Sensor – was designed by Alain Poirier to make life a little easier and less painful for people with diabetes.

The PGS would work with a two-piece system consisting of an armband and a strap-on sensor. Near-infrared light technology would measure the wearer’s blood glucose levels every five minutes to ensure that the blood sugar stays within acceptable levels all day.

The device is rechargeable and can run for up to 30 hours on a single charge. That means that even if you go out dancing after work, you won’t have to worry about rushing home to test your blood or recharge your device. You will, however, still have to content with wearing two bulky pieces of plastic on your body all day, every day.