FORCE Packs deliver mobile flights of care for iPhone, iPad & iPod Touch
NEW YORK - April 18th, 2013 - FORCE Therapeutics is proud to announce the release of FORCE Injury Packs for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, available now on the App Store. FORCE Packs are injury specific rehab solutions with custom flights of care and can be e-prescribed by doctors or directly downloaded by patients.
FORCE Packs give patients with musculoskeletal injuries (such as back or shoulder pain) access to injury-specific rehab exercise videos, expert advice, treatment information, common symptoms and the ability to set and track goals. Patients are prompted to engage in their rehab with easy to use and immediately accessible mobile tools. Success and progress can be automatically shared, motivating patients on their road to recovery through Facebook and email.
FORCE Injury Packs benefit healthcare professionals who treat patients requiring physical rehabilitation. Physicians can instantly prescribe specific FORCE Injury Packs via web-based widget tools or paper-based prescription pads. Physicians can also build their own customized protocol packs for pre or post surgical patients. Three years of research by a team of prominent physical therapists have produced the FORCE video exercise library. These high definition rehab exercise videos are easy to follow, promote proper technique and offer a smart first response to common injuries.
Starting rehab within the first 14 days of injury has been shown to significantly reduce the cost of care and shorten time to full recovery*. Rehabilitation is a major healthcare cost -- a recent report by Optum Health cited musculoskeletal injuries as the top medical expenditure in the US over the last three years. FORCE Injury Packs are recommended as an adjunct to traditional physical therapy and can also be used to find local specialists via the FORCE mobile directory.
The FORCE Packs App is available for free from the App Store on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch or at www.AppStore.com. Specific Force Injury Packs are available via In-App Purchase from $4.99.
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FORCE Therapeutics designs and builds best in class, web and mobile apps for injury rehabilitation and prevention. FORCE Therapeutics was founded in 2010 by Bronwyn Spira, a prominent physical therapist and industry leader with 20 years of clinical experience, and Mark Lieberman, a health technology executive, serial entrepreneur and Emmy nominated content producer. Early success with FORCE TherEx, an online suite of rehab solutions for physical therapists, inspired a broader line of mobile injury rehab products including FORCE Connect and most recently FORCE Injury Packs. FORCE Therapeutics is one of the global leaders in mobile injury rehab and prevention.
*Fritz, Julie, John Childs, and et al. "Primary Care Referral of Patients With Low Back Pain to Physical Therapy: Impact on Future Health Care Utilization and Costs." Spine. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Inc., 26 Mar 2012.
For more information, press inquiries or to interview Bronwyn Spira, CEO of FORCE Therapeutics, please contact:
Alexis Fotiu
alexis@forcetherapeutics.com
Marketing & Publicity
FORCE Therapeutics
57 E11th Street, Suite 8B New York, New York 10003 | 646-415-8632
www.forcetherapeutics.com
Digital Patient Management and Tracking System for Physical Therapists
Introduction to the Industrial sector and prevalent Challenges:
Poor patient compliance is one of the major factors contributing toward unsatisfactory patient outcomes. In order to boost patient outcomes and compliance tracking, several healthcare-IT firms are engaged in developing Web-based solutions for physical therapists. In the US physical therapy industry, both patients and physical therapists are on a constant lookout for all-in-one Web platforms that support patient management, comprised of professional exercise videos and compliance monitoring tools, that can be customized to include integrated scheduling tasks. Digital health applications, which fundamentally improve the patient experience and patient outcomes, are increasingly of interest to the physical therapy industry professionals. Digital technology that includes video and social media tools are helping patients adhere to their physical therapy regimens. Mobile health applications are emerging to become ideal tools for patient management, monitoring, communication, and video exercise prescription needs. This rising growth and integration of mobile platforms within healthcare delivery is compounded by the fact that within the mobile content market, mobile healthcare information usage is identified to be the fastest growing segment with a growth percentage of 135% recorded in 2011 alone. One such company is New York-based FORCE Therapeutics. The company was founded in 2009 by a group of veteran physical therapists, world-class engineers, and video content producers who are uniquely positioned to understand physical therapy workflow and patient challenges, and develop innovative digital health applications. This firm is engaged in developing mobile application suite for achieving excellence in physical therapy solutions.
Introduction to the Developer of Technology/Product:
FORCE Therapeutics has an innovative cross-channel platform that extends the relationship between patient and physical therapist outside the office using digital technology. FORCE Therapeutics creates mobile and Web-enabled solutions for physical therapists and their patients to enable physical therapists to improve level of service and quality of care provided to patients through the company’s suite of mobile video solutions. The company’s first product is FORCE TherEx, a Web and mobile application for physical therapists. The product helps therapists prescribe and monitor their patient’s compliance and home exercise program schedules. Through the FORCE TherEx platform, patients have the ability to view exercise videos, track daily progress, purchase equipment, and communicate with their physical therapist via their mobile phones. Some of the notable features integrated into the FORCE TherEx platform to enable tracking of patient and staying connected in an online environment includes drag and drop functionality for exercise programs and protocols, automated sign-up procedures, customizable exercise videos, which stream to the mobile device, and an intra-office messaging center. In addition to FORCE TherEx mobile application, FORCE Therapeutics has also developed a FORCE Mobile platform that offers professional exercise solutions for muscular skeletal disorders, directly to the consumer. The FORCE Mobile app. is designed to recommend exercises based on sports, area and type of dysfunction, thereby creating a playlist of rehabilitation exercise videos, which directly stream to the user's mobile device.
Analyst Insights on Product Development:
Since both FORCE therapeutics’ products allow therapists to track patient compliance seamlessly and enables real-time clinical documentation changes to be made to the patient’s data, the applications spectrum and competitive pricing varies according to the individualized patient portal. The FORCE TherEx platform can be integrated seamlessly into an orthopedic or chiropractic practice as well as for primary care physicians examining injuries such as, lower back pain, sports medicine, and emergency care medicine. All of which benefit from using mobile video enhanced services and care. Clearly, FORCE Therapeutics' platforms takes physical therapy management into the next-generation by employing mobile solutions for on-the-go patients in a secure electronic setting and enables tracking of patient compliance using both home computer networks as well as mobile tools. Integration and adoption of such mobile physical therapy tools empowering patients and clinician' practice is expected to take another three to four years.
Please visit our website at www.forcetherapeutics.com
Increasing Physical Therapy Patient Compliance with Web-Based Applications
A Recent Usability Study of Apps for Rehabilitation at Michigan Technological University Using the FORCE TherEx Platform for Physical Therapists
Katrina M. Ellis, Chad Norman, & Alex Van der Merwe
Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI
ABSTRACT: Our research investigated instructional materials given to patients of physical therapy, and methods for checking patient comprehension and compliance. We conducted environmental and task analyses by interviewing practicing physical therapists to map the problem space. Responses to surveys taken by patients of physical therapy and practicing physical therapists suggested that video instruction of exercises and video conference meetings between clinic visits would be beneficial to patient rehabilitation. Using a convenience sample of undergraduates, we investigated the influence of self-efficacy and format of instructional materials on willingness to comply, satisfaction with information, and anxiety related to completing rehabilitation. We found that video with text instructions were most satisfying to students.
METHODS: There were two phases to this experiment. The purpose of the first phase was to compile information from practicing physical therapists and patients of physical therapy on their perceptions of their experiences with physical therapy recommendations and compliance. The purpose of the second phase was to investigate the role of instructional medium on information satisfaction, and to see if medium is a mediator between exercise self-efficacy and willingness to comply.
RESULTS: Recommended length of rehabilitation varied from 3 to 5 weeks to over 12 weeks. The majority of physical therapists reported that 6 to 8 weeks was the typical length of rehabilitation (54%; 3 to 5 weeks, 23%; 9 to 12 weeks, 15%; and more than 12 weeks, 8%). The majority (77%) of PTs encouraged unsupervised exercises after the first visit. The amount of unsupervised exercises between visits varied between 1 to 2 and 5 to 6. The majority of PTs suggested that 1 to 2 unsupervised exercise sessions occurred between face to face visits (54%; 3 to 4, 38%; and 5 to 6, 8%). 100% of PTs suggested that demonstration was the best way to instruct patients on exercises to be performed unsupervised at home. 92% of PTs have not previously used videos for instruction of unsupervised exercises and almost half do not check for compliance. The majority (12/13) would consider a different method for checking compliance. PTs also believed that video instructions should improve patient confidence in their ability to perform the unsupervised exercises and that videos transfer proper exercise technique.
UNDERGRADUATE SURVEY: A few interesting trends which should be noted. Movie & text instructions received the highest rating in satisfaction—this group also had high ratings of compliance and low ratings of anxiety. This further supports the addition of video instruction in physical therapy prescriptions.
DISCUSSION: After our preliminary interviews with practicing physical therapists, it was clear that there needed to be some change in the instructional materials given to patients of physical therapy of unsupervised exercise prescriptions and a change in the procedures for tracking patient compliance. We surveyed current practicing physical therapists, patients of physical therapy, and a convenience sample of undergraduate students to gather perceptions of physical therapy practices, instructional materials, and compliance-tracking.
We did find that instructional medium influenced satisfaction with the information. This result suggested that video & text instructional materials were rated higher than other mediums or combinations of mediums.
CONCLUSIONS: This research investigated the influence of video instruction and video conference feedback on willingness to comply. We found that video instruction was rated higher than text or picture instruction, but power was not sufficient to find additional significant results. Survey of PTs and patients of PTs perceptions suggested that video instruction and video conferences between clinic visits would be beneficial to patient confidence, compliance and rehabilitation.
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
Google Updates Android’s Google Now App: Featuring a Fitness Tracker
It turns out Google may be reentering the world of mobile health. Earlier this month, when Google updated one of its premiere Android applications ‘Google Now’, it added a personal activity tracker. Google didn’t draw attention to this new feature, failing to mention its presence in their official blog post announcing the update at the beginning of December.
Google previously launched Google Health, a personal health record, in 2008 but decided to discontinue the app when it failed to scale beyond a relatively small group of dedicated patient users, and also because new CEO Larry Page wanted to re-focus the company (1). Now that mobile health has become more prevalent,
247 million people downloaded a health app in 2012 compared to 124 million in 2011 (2), Google has undoubtedly decided to partake in the growing trend.
Google announced in their blog post that the update of Google Now will let you check the weather, access boarding passes, find activities to do and more. The fitness tracker feature added to Google now delivers a monthly activity report of time spent walking or cycling, measured passively by the phone itself, and displays it alongside the previous month’s data for comparison (1). Could this feature compete with existing fitness-tracking apps already on the market?
A spokesperson from Fitbit tells Mashable that newcomers to the fitness-tracking market, like Google Now, will only serve to legitimize the space further (3). As the market continues to expand, with more apps being developed that cater to specific health and fitness needs, we can only hope more people will realize their benefits and implement them in their lives.
Works Cited
(1) Comstock, Jonah. "Google adds activity tracking to Android app." MobiHealthNews. Chester Street Publishing, Inc., 17 2012. Web. 21 Dec 2012.
(2) Laird, Sam. "How Smartphones Are Changing Health Care." Mashable. Mashable, 26 2012. Web. 21 Dec 2012.
(3) Freeman, Kate. "'Google Now' Could Compete With Fitness-Tracking Apps." Mashable. Mashable, 13 2012. Web. 21 Dec 2012.
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
Is Social Media Influencing How People Retrieve Medical Information?
People use the Internet to make numerous health inquiries. With websites such as WebMD, people can check their symptoms and access health and medical information. We have been using the Internet to search for information since we first started cyber surging. People began by interacting with complete strangers in forums where they could ask salient questions. Now, we have social media sites and apps where people can post their health related questions and concerns and expect pertinent responses.
A study compiled by Demi & Cooper Advertising and DC Interactive Group shows that more than 90% of people ages 18-24 said they would trust health information they found on social media channels (1). While this can be beneficial as a way to talk to people with similar conditions for support or advice it can be dangerous as well. Not every source on the Internet is reliable and people need to be hesitant when seeking health and medical information from unknown ‘experts’. People should always consult with their healthcare professionals about any health or medical concerns they may have.
Patients are also taking to the Internet to talk about the care they receive: 44% of people said they would share positive or negative experiences of a hospital or medical facility, and 42% said they wouldn’t hesitate to post comments about a doctor, nurse or healthcare provider on social media (1). This can have a positive or negative outcome for the doctors depending on the review or experience the person is posting.
While patients use social media to vent their frustrations or praise the care they received, doctors have also been found to use social media. More than a quarter of hospitals have a social media presence and 60% of doctors say social media improves the quality of care (1). The difference with doctors posting on social media is they have to be extremely careful what they post due to liability issues.
Since doctors are required to keep healthcare information private, in accordance with HIPAA laws, its essential that they are aware of boundaries while using social media, says Ryan Greysen, assistant clinical professor in the department of medicine at University of California, San Francisco (1).
Greysen tells Mashable that doctors should be careful what information they give to patients on social networks. The security of such sites is important to consider since medical advice and information should be completely private (1). Social media is constantly shared and can be viewed by innumerable people. While it’s great that people are communicating health concerns and keeping track of their health, this can be dangerous for doctors to feed into, even if they are just trying to help. Doctors should withhold from commenting on public forums to prevent liability issues. However “secured patient portals are a great way to leverage mobile technology to promote healthy behavior (1).”
Greysen states, “A lot of medical conditions require much more detail and dialogue between the patient and the physician. In many cases it [a website] doesn’t substitute for an in-person visit (1).”
People seeking serious health and medical information should consult with healthcare professionals in person or through secure portals provided by the doctor or medical facility. While the Internet is a great place to do research and consult with others for support and advice regarding mundane things, taking medical advice from unknown sources should be avoided.
Works Cited
(1) Freeman, Kate. "How Social Media, Mobile Are Playing a Bigger Part in Healthcare." Mashable. Mashable, 20 2012. Web. 20 Dec 2012.
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
Adoption of Health Apps
For those of us who have used mobile health and fitness apps, we know just how beneficial they can be. I personally rely on my Nike Training Club app and MyFitnessPal app to aid in my workouts and serve as my nutrition diary. As with most things, it took some getting used to. Nike Training Club lets you choose exercise routines based on preference of results (for example, toned versus lean). For an avid gym-goer, this app helps me mix up my routine and makes working out more exciting. At first, it was difficult to get used to doing my exercises with my mobile phone as my trainer but as I become familiar with the app and use it regularly, I can’t imagine my workouts without it.
MyFitnessPal allows you to enter your food choices, cardio work and strength training so you are able to determine how many calories you are taking in and how many you are expending through exercise. It can be hard to remember to input this information, but MyFitnessPal is an app and a website that allows you to input the information quickly and easily, so this issue was easily overcome. This app motivated me to eat healthier and make better decisions regarding portion sizes and nutrition.
While fitness and diet apps are the most popular of mobile health app downloads, there are hundreds of apps that cater to people with diabetes, arthritis, low back pain, high blood pressure, along with countless other diagnoses. These apps provide people with important health information, exercises to alleviate pain, and the ability to input information (similar to MyFitnessPal) where they are able to record personal health data so they can report the information accurately to their doctors or become aware of a concerning change.
Since 2010, about 10 percent of American adults with mobile phones have had some kind of app on their phone that helps them track or manage their health, according to a PEW survey (1). Of these respondents, thirty-eight percent used apps to track exercise, fitness, or heart rate. This means a large portion of the population that would benefit from health apps are not utilizing them. Smartphone users have about twice the adoption rate for health apps when compared to the general population, so it’s reasonable to assume that as smartphone adoption increases so would health app adoption. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case.
“There has been a significant proliferation in the number of health apps available, but seemingly no increase in adoption (2).” In an article titled, “Three years of stagnant health app adoption,” MobiHealthNews talks with Susannah Fox, who conducted the Pew survey, about what she thinks might drive adoption forward.
“The trends that I am watching — I don’t make predictions — but [there are three] trends that I am watching. [The first is] smartphone adoption. If smartphone adoption continues increasing and we see continued engagement with smartphones users getting health apps, then looking for increased health app adoption among smartphone users seems to make sense.” (2)
Fox lists media portrayal of apps as the second trend she is watching. We don’t see advertisements for health apps. Usually we hear about them from friends or family or unintentionally stumble across them in the app store. Fox says she perceives there has been an increase in mainstream media coverage of health apps. If they continue to be covered in articles and news segments, their popularity might surge as people become aware of them.
“The third aspect of this that I am watching for is clinical integration,” Fox said. “That is when your doctor prescribes an app. That is going to have a different effect on your interest in trying it, over you just downloading it, or it coming pre-installed on your phone. Those are the trends I’m watching — again, they are not predictions, just some of the trends I am keeping an eye on.” (2).
Being recommended apps by our doctors will undoubtedly encourage us to download and utilize these health apps. Whether the recommendation of an app by a doctor will introduce people to health apps they never knew existed or provide people with an incentive to use one (for example, accountability to their doctor), we can only hope people will begin to realize their benefits. As smartphone adoption, media coverage, and clinical integration flourish, I’ll now be keeping an eye on these trends and their effect on health app adoption.
(1) Fox, Susannah, and Maeve Duggan. "Mobile Health 2012." PEW Internet & American Life Project. Pewinternet.org, 08 2012. Web. 12 Nov 2012.
(2) Dolan, Brian. "Three Years of Stagnant Health App Adoption." MobiHealthNews. Chester Street Publishing, Inc., 08 2012. Web. 12 Nov 2012.
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
PPS 2012 “Do your employees know it’s all about the patient?”
FORCE Therapeutics attended the Private Practice Section Conference (PPS) 2012 at the Wynn Las Vegas last week. We are excited to share what we learned with our readers! The next few posts will be dedicated to our synopsis of the underlying PPS themes and some of the new cutting edge innovations we discovered there.
On the first night we attended the opening keynote where Brian Gullbrants, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Wynn and Encore Hotels, presented PPS attendees with a compelling talk entitled “Business Management and Customer Service – The Wynn Model”.
In his presentation he shared what makes the Wynn and Encore hotels so successful and how these principles for success can be applied to Private Practice Section. Wynn Las Vegas and its sister property Encore Las Vegas collectively hold more Forbes five-star awards than any other resort and casino in the world, so hearing from the Executive Vice President and General Manager of these hotels was an honor and extremely informative.
The Wynn prides itself on excellent staff, cutting edge service, and the ability to hold a competitive advantage by not being afraid of change. Staying ahead means hiring only the best employees and providing them with training, coaching, and an orientation where the culture is defined and they are taught how to provide excellent customer service. Success entails increasing communication between employees where expectations and accountability are constantly expressed.
Brian recommends going over your core values with your employees every morning, afternoon, and night. He sends out an email to his employees every night expressing the values they should uphold. He says they focus their core values around their guests. As Steve Wynn stated, “It’s all about the guest experience, and nothing else”. For PPS attendees, Brian says this should be adopted as “It’s all about the patient experience, and nothing else”. Do your employees know it’s all about the patient?
In order to provide the best service to patients, Brian says you can’t be afraid of change. “If you dislike change, you’re going to dislike irrelevance even more”. Patients are always going to search for the best service to make their experience easier and more pleasant. If everyone around you is changing and you don’t take action or adopt new technologies don’t expect to hold a competitive edge. In order to stay ahead you need to embrace continuous change and reinvention. Any way that your organization is able to provide cutting edge service, management and efficient and effective communication, do it. It’s the only way you’re going to thrive in a competitive landscape. What are you currently doing to give your practice a competitive edge?
To quote Jack Welch, CEO of GE: “An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage”. At PPS, physical therapists attended information sessions where the theme seemed to be implementing new technologies to provide the best service to patients. In the exhibit hall, we saw many vendors who provide cutting edge advantages for physical therapists. Make sure to check back for our upcoming posts on the exhibit hall and exciting new technology available for PTs and their patients!
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
Patient Engagement in Healthcare
Technology is used as a tool for people to connect, engage, input and retrieve information. In the healthcare field, tools to amplify patient engagement allow patients to message securely with their healthcare providers, retrieve information quickly and effortlessly and input information that enables them to track their own health.
With the introduction of Meaningful Use Stage 2, patient engagement has gone from nice-to-have to necessary, and that transition requires hospital systems and physician practices across the country to employ tools that aid in this process (1). As expected, the proposed Stage 2 criteria focuses on how healthcare facilities can exchange key clinical information about patients and provide patients with online access to their health data (2).
PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Health Research Institute commissioned an online survey of 2,000 consumers and 1,000 physicians regarding their use and preference of mobile technologies in the United States. Only half of physicians surveyed currently access electronic medical records while visiting and treating their patients, a situation that will improve with Meaningful Use requirements for physicians to use interoperable electronic medical records (3). Physicians agreed that the greatest benefit of mobile health would be to help them make decisions fast by accessing more accurate data in real time (3). Some providers are offering software or apps that allow patients to message securely with their provider, monitor their health, and share tracking results with their doctor. By offering these means of engagement to patients, they save time gathering information, they can keep track of how their patient is doing, and they have the ability to answer questions quickly. Providing patients with these tools can lower readmission, increase patient engagement, and provide patients with a sense of accountability for their health.
More providers are witnessing the benefits of implementing mobile technology as a way to enhance care. Regardless whether healthcare professionals are the ones providing the information, patients are turning to mobile technology for information and support. People go online and are willing to share personal information with strangers in order to receive medical information inexpensively and immediately. In a study conducted by Pew Internet and American Life it was found that 74% of adults use the Internet and 80% of these adults have looked for health information online (4). The study also found that 34% of adult Internet users have read blogs or used social media to learn more about a medical issue or find support (4). While many people are open to sharing their health information with friends, family, or people with similar conditions, the information they are receiving in turn is not always accurate. By implementing tools that allow patients to engage with their healthcare providers, these healthcare professionals can protect their patients from being misinformed.
In the study conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers, 80% of adults aged 18-24 reported a willingness to share personal health information via social media, and 90% of this same group said they’d trust their social media contacts as sources of accurate health information (3). Providing ways in which people can engage with their healthcare providers for this information will guide where the information is coming from and prevent the inevitable misinformation that is bound to be collected through social media.
When asked who they would prefer to receive mobile health services from, consumers ranked their healthcare provider, hospital or health system as Number One, followed by their health insurer (3). People are turning to the Internet for health information because they use it for so many other inquiries. Unfortunately, a lot of the health information on the web is inaccurate and as stated above, people trust these sources that have no accountability. Healthcare professionals need to step in as the providers of information to their patients through mobile mediums. Mobile technology provides an inexpensive way to reach a lot of people at one time. If healthcare professionals took advantage of technology as a way to communicate and relay information to and from their patients they would reap extensive benefits.
The study by PricewaterhouseCoopers found 31% of consumers would be willing to incorporate an application into their existing cell phone or smart phone to be able to track and monitor their personal health information (3). 40% said they would be willing to pay for a device and a monthly subscription fee for a mobile phone application that would send text and e-mail reminders to take their medications, refill prescriptions or to access their medical records and track their health. 40% also said they would be willing to pay for a remote monitoring device and a monthly subscription that would send data automatically to their doctor health information such as heart rate, blood pressure, blood sugar and weight (3).
Physicians agree that patient compliance with doctor recommendations is a major obstacle to managing health outcomes, and 88% of physicians said they would like their patients to be able to track and/or monitor their health at home (3). Physicians, however, want to see filtered information or exceptions in their patient's health, not all the data all the time. Too much information could actually slow down care. Using software or apps allows healthcare providers to dictate what information their patients have to fill out or monitor. This way they are not inundated with too much information and can keep track of only what is vital to their patients’ care.
By implementing these tools, healthcare professionals can increase patient engagement, which in turn can lower readmissions, save time, and ensure their patients are receiving accurate information. Patients can keep track of vital health information and their providers can be alerted if the patients need to be brought in for a visit. Keeping track of their health at home is an important factor in managing health outcomes and according to research done by EURO RSCG, 44% of people would be more likely to adhere to a treatment program if they had a mobile app to keep them on track (5). Technology serves as a tool that allows patients to be engaged in their healthcare in a convenient, easy way. I’m sure we will see more of these programs implemented over the next year as healthcare professionals recognize the benefits they provide.
(1) Michelle, McNickle. "7 E-Health Tools To Get Patients Engaged." InformationWeek. UBM TechWeb, 08 2012. Web. 19 Oct 2012..
(2) Lucas, Mearian. "What Stage 2 'meaningful use' e-health rules mean." Computerworld Healthcare IT. Computerworld Inc, 28 2012. Web. 19 Oct 2012..
(3) PRNewswire. "Three in Ten Americans Would Use Their Cell Phone to Track Personal Health, Finds PricewaterhouseCoopers." PR Newswire. PR Newswire Association LLC, 08 2012. Web. 19 Oct 2012..
(4) Fox, Susannah. "The Social Life of Health Information, 2011." Pew Internet & American Life Project. pewinternet.org, 12 2011. Web. 19 Oct 2012..
(5) "The Promise of Mobile Health." Euro RSCG Life 4D. Euro RSCG Life 4D, n.d. Web. 19 Oct 2012..
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
Recent Posts
- Early Physical Therapy Referral Can Offer Great Low Back Pain Benefits
- Are patients tracking their own health?
- FORCE Packs deliver mobile flights of care for iPhone, iPad & iPod Touch
- Digital Patient Management and Tracking System for Physical Therapists
- Regulation of Medical Apps by the FDA: What qualifies as a “medical app”
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