This month we would like to introduce you to an exciting and innovative new company called Orca Health. We first met the folks behind the creation of Orca MD at the National mHealth summit last December. Orca Health was one of the Digital Healthcare companies chosen to exhibit in the StartUp Health pavilion in Washington DC and we were proud to be in such good company. Orca MD’s suite of design-savvy apps is geared towards helping patients learn more about their medical condition in an elegant, 3D environment. Practicing medical doctors from Stanford, University of Washington, Harvard and University of Southern California provide intellectually sound content, which is then presented as maneuverable simulated anatomical models for the apps. 6 out of the 11 of these are orthopedic in nature and focus on various body parts and associated pathologies.
For example: “Foot decide” allows users to manipulate a 3-d depiction of the foot, manually rotating it in space to view various joint, ligament and muscle positions. Each module offers amazing graphic and radiological images of the most common conditions as well as motion depictions (watch how the foot moves during gait).
There is also an extensive location based specialist directory (including physical therapists) in each module.
The apps can be purchased individually on the iTunes store for $1.99 to $4.99 each. Get them all: knee, shoulder, spine (I have used this one so much, it would be dog-eared if it weren’t digital), foot, hand and aging spine for hours of geeky sensory- overload educational entertainment. Click here to download foot decide from app store
For therapists, this is a must have patient education tool!
We would like to congratulate Orca on some of their recent accomplishments including:
- ‘EyeDecide’ was chosen as the ‘Best of the iPad/iPhone Medical category in App Store Rewind 2011
- Being featured alongside FORCE TherEx at the StartUp Mobile Health Pavillion at the 2011 mHealth Summit
- Winner of the Health 2.0 Europe Startup Competition.
FORCE therapeutics designs web and mobile applications for injury rehabilitation and prevention.
FORCE TherEx and FORCE Premium are known to be the BEST EMR and HEP products in Physical Therapy and Rehab.
Please visit our website at www.forcetherapeutics.com
By Christina Cool MPH
& Bronwyn Spira PT
Although it’s been out over a year and was announced by president Obama, I’m confidant saying many people especially those who would be taking advantage of such a great innovation have never heard of Blue Button. What is Blue button? Directly from The United States Department of Veterans Affairs, Blue Button “allows Veterans to download their personal health information from their My HealtheVet account” (1). This is a major step in closing the gap between physicians and patients. This is saving Grandpa’s life when he was given Digoxin by an on call physician while he was taking Quinidine (a commonly known toxic combination).
Blue button is a simple technology that could decrease the 1.5 million hospitalizations and 1000,0000 fatalities a year caused by adverse drug reactions and the 7,000 deaths a year from medication errors in hospitals (2)(3). Drug reactions and deaths aside, why shouldn’t everyone have this kind of access to their own personal health information? Blue button allows patients in a click to download a wide range of information from emergency contact info to lab and test results, immunizations, vitals, family history, and even treatment facilities. In August of 2010 the White House Administration formally announce the launch of Blue Button for Veterans and Medicare beneficiaries and here we are in November of 2011 still having trouble accessing our records (4).
Earlier this year at a StartUp health roundtable meeting in New York City, Thomas Goetz, Joe McCannon, Steven Krein and Todd Park led a rountable discussion on ‘Bridging the Gap Between Health Entrepreneurs and Government.’ I was attending with FORCE Therapeutics (my employer) and was lucky enough to learn from this talented panel. Todd Park, the CTO of US Department of Health & Human Services had a lot to say about his experiences and more to say about Blue Button and the ability it has to really improve healthcare. Blue button is not only available to VA hospitals and patients as well as Medicare beneficiaries, but is available to Healthcare Organization in all arenas. Additionally, Blue Button is available at no cost. This all made Blue Button a hot topic at other conferences I attended with FORCE Therapeutics including NYeC in New York City and mHealth in DC. Luckily the company I work for makes all their data available to their patients and will be working to integrate blue button as well, but this leaves me with one question? Why doesn’t the medical clinic where I receive care use Blue Button? I hope this has you thinking: ‘well mine does!’ If not, I hope it has you wondering why yours doesn’t.
As said on the Blue Button website “To improve healthcare, we must empower patients. Join the effort to give all Americans the information they need to become active participants in their own care (5).”
To learn more about Blue Button see: http://bluebuttondata.org/
To get Blue Button see: http://www.va.gov/bluebutton/apps/License/
1) (2010). Blue button. Retrieved from United States Department of Veterans Affairs website: http://www.va.gov/bluebutton/
2) Lazarou J, Pomeranz BH, Corey PN. Incidence of adverse drug reactions in hospitalized patients: A meta-analysis of prospective studies. Journal of the American Medical Association Apr 15, 1998; 279: 1200 - 1205
3) Starfield, B. (2000). Medical errors - a leading cause of death. The Journal of the American Medical Association, July 26,2000; 284(4)
4)
Chopra, A., Park, T., and Levin, P. (2010). ‘blue button’ provides access to downloadable personal health data . Retrieved from The White House, Office of Science and Technology Police website: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/10/07/blue-button-provides-access-downloadable-personal-health-data
Blue button. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://bluebuttondata.org/
FORCE Therapeutics designs web and mobile applications for injury rehabilitation and prevention.
FORCE TherEx and FORCE Premium are known to be the BEST EMR and HEP products in Physical Therapy and Rehab.
Please visit our website at www.forcetherapeutics.com
This month we would like to introduce you to an exciting and innovative new company called Orca Health. We first met the folks behind the creation of Orca MD at the National mHealth summit last December. Orca Health was one of the Digital Healthcare companies chosen to exhibit in the StartUp Health pavilion in Washington DC and we were proud to be in such good company. Orca MD’s suite of design-savvy apps is geared towards helping patients learn more about their medical condition in an elegant, 3D environment. Practicing medical doctors from Stanford, University of Washington, Harvard and University of Southern California provide intellectually sound content, which is then presented as maneuverable simulated anatomical models for the apps. 6 out of the 11 of these are orthopedic in nature and focus on various body parts and associated pathologies.
