mobihealthnews

Two years ago we created the first timeline that tracked the milestones and newsworthy events surrounding the adoption of the iPhone by healthcare professionals. A little more than a year ago we updated that timeline so it spanned 18 months of health-related iPhone news. Today, our medical iPhone timeline stretches across 30 months of news events — for two and a half years medical professionals have used the device in clinical settings.

It’s clear that in 2011 the amount of health-related iPhone news has surged and what was once newsy in 2008 and 2009 is no longer novel. What is perhaps more clear is that while the iPhone has steadily built its healthcare user base,

The timeline that follows serves as a reminder of some of these notable events. We know this list, while extensive, is not exhaustive. I’m sure we missed a number of important events.

Be sure to let us know what’s missing in the comments section, and we’ll update accordingly.

So, which milestones led to the success of the iPhone and iPad in healthcare? Check out our iPhone as a medical tool timeline below. Each page documents the events that took place during a particular month — or in some cases, over the course of a couple of months if the newscycle was slow:
April 2009 May 2009 June 2009 – July 2009 August 2009 September 2009 October 2009 November 2009 December 2009 January 2010 – March 2010 April 2010 May 2010 June 2010 July 2010 August 2010 September 2010 November 2010 December 2010 January 2011 February 2011 March 2011 April 2011 May 2011 June 2011 Continue >>

Rock Health, the mobile health incubator that launched earlier this year just announced (most of) the names of its first batch of startups, which were picked by Rock Health’s venture capitalist and healthcare provider partners. The incubator said that more than 350 entrants applied to the program, which consists of five months of consulting on design, health policy, funding, infrastructure branding, communications and more.

“Until now, the healthcare and technology spheres have been totally separate. The brilliance of Rock Health is that, for the first time, a surge of talent is flowing into health apps — the same brainy, bold, blue-sky entrepreneurs who brought about Web 2.0,” Patrick Chang, Partner at NEA stated in Rock Health’s release. “These entrepreneurs see an ailing sector that can be restored more cheaply, easily and inventively than ever before. This inaugural class brings together physicians, web designers and more than a few yogis to work on cool, diverse concepts. Rock Health is an excitant in a field of infirmity.”

“We are thrilled to be working with Rock Health and engaging in the powerful ecosystem that is being developed,” added Dr. Michael Matley, leader in business development and new ventures for the Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation. “By coupling the passion and innovation of these entrepreneurs, the scaling and business expertise of great investors, and the clinical expertise of the Mayo Clinic, we hope to create solutions to healthcare’s most compelling problems.”

It’s refreshing to see a list of startups working on mobile health and online health tools that includes few recognizable names. While few are recognizable now, what’s more important is whether any of these will be well known in the near future. It’s still very early, but what do you think, will Rock Health’s Class of 2011 produce any winners?

To learn more about each of the startups in Rock Health’s Class of 2011, click on a name from the list. Not mentioned in the list are three additional startups that are in “stealth mode” still.

BrainBot (technology to improve mental performance)
CellScope (at-home diagnosis of diseases)
Genomera (personal health collaboration)
Health In Reach (medical procedure marketplace)
Omada Health (clinical treatment social networking)
Pipette (patient monitoring and education)
Skimble (mobile fitness)
WeSprout (connecting health data and community)

Continue >>

We mentioned a report last week from the Digital Pharma Blog that Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and Merck had each removed apps from the Apple AppStore in recent months. While many others covering this story attributed the move to a potential rethinking on the value of apps, the Digital Pharma Blog attributes many of the withdrawals to mergers the companies went through during the past two years: Merck with Schering-Plough and Pfizer with Wyeth.

In fact, the Digital Pharma Blog has aggregated some 65 smartphone apps created by pharma and biotech companies on its new Digital Pharma Links page, which can be found here. The page is a comprehensive looking list but it lacks details and screen grabs of the apps, so we put together a quick slide show to highlight ten of the apps created by some of the major pharma and biotech companies.

Pharma is clearly just beginning to embrace smartphone apps. They are not shying away from the platform: Continue >>

WebMD has officially announced the release of its Medscape mobile app for Apple’s iPad and Android smartphones and tablets. More than 700,000 healthcare professionals already use Medscape mobile, according to the company. Epocrates says more than 1 million healthcare providers use its Web and mobile apps, but it does break out its user base for the iPhone: 175,000 physicians have Epocrates on their iPhone.

What the analysts and journalists are doing wrong: AMD President Steve Normandin put out an interesting press release today. Normandin has called on analysts and journalists who cover telemedicine to do a better job of segmenting the industry. Don’t lump robots in with physician adoption of email, for example. This is both a sad and sensible short piece of commentary.

While we’re on the 50,000 foot view of the industry, telemedicine veteran and thought leader Dr. Roy Schoenberg has an editorial in the Huffington Post this week. The concluding remark does sum it up nicely: “Telecommunication has changed almost every dimension of our lives within one generation. Telemedicine is its application in health care. It’s big, it’s powerful and it’s mostly asleep. With the current state of health care, isn’t it time we wake this elephant up?” Roy thinks so.

Last week the LA Times post an article called: Pills with a mind of their own, which covers a lot of the usual suspects and introduces a few new ones currently in labs. Curiously they referenced Novartis’ work with Proteus Biomedical without mentioning Proteus Biomedical. It’s a fine overview of smart pills and some of the more technologically complex avenues for addressing medication adherence.

Have you signed up for our free webinar focused on mHealth Trends in 2011? Also includes a mobile health-focused preview of HIMSS 2011. One hour of mHealth perspectives — don’t forget to register here.

Riddle: It’s small, fits in your pocket and you carry it around with you every where you go. Your mobile phone, right? Wrong: It’s your can of Mace, of course. This week Mace Security International became the exclusive distributor in the US for the UK-based, GPS-enabled mobile personal emergency response device called Buddi. Given the belt clip or necklace options, it’s very Lifecomm-esque.

Matt Berg, director of ChildCount+ and one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in 2010, gathered his thoughts for a predictions piece on 2011 trends in mHealth in developing markets. Of most interest to me: SMS (text messaging) based programs will move to interactive voice response (IVR) systems. Is that a step forward or back?

Last year the CEO and another executive left Toumaz to form their own wireless vital signs monitoring venture. The startup launched today and goes by the name Isansys Lifecare. More details to follow.

Diversinet has inked a $5 million deal with MiHealth Global Systems, which will now act as the secure mobile health services provider’s exclusive distributor in Canada.

Voalte has partnered with Rauland-Borg Corporation, an incumbent developer of nurse call solutions. The companies offerings are now integrated so that the services work together.

Zyxel announced a partnership with Entra Health Systems to integrate its Smart Home Gateway with Entra’s MyGlucoHealth Bluetooth-enabled blood glucose meter.

Read on for images of some of the devices, products and apps mentioned above — in other words this mobile health news roundup in pictures: Continue >>

According to our latest research report, Fastest Growing and Most Successful Health and Medical Apps, there were about 250 apps that fall into the “Operational & EMR apps” subcategory of iPhone medical apps as of September 2010. These are apps intended for use by care providers, including pager replacement apps, charge capture apps, electronic medical records apps, patient logbooks, schedulers and remote practice management apps. While many of these apps are free feature add-ons for enterprise systems, with an average price of $3.84, this group was still the fourth priciest group of health and medical apps found in Apple’s AppStore.

According to Apple’s ranking of its AppStore’s Medical Category Top 1000, these are the Top 10 EMR and Operational apps highest on the list:

1. Bedside by IMS MAXIMS. Rank out of 1000? 150. Released: August 17, 2010. Details
2. Care360 Mobile by Quest Diagnostics. Rank? 204. Released: March 30, 2009. Details
3. Accent by Webahn. Rank out of 1000? 245. Released: September 18, 2009. Details
4. Allscripts Remote by Allscripts. Rank out of 1000? 248. Released: March 31, 2009. Details
5. iConnect – Notes Edition by Grembe. Rank? 263. Released: October 30, 2009. Details
6. NI GME by New Innovations. Rank out of 1000? 337. Released: July 4, 2009. Details
7. nTrack by Skyscape. Rank? 348. Released: September 3, 2009. Details
8. PK4801R by PatientKeeper. Rank out of 1000? 388. Released: March 25, 2010. Details
9. AirStrip OB by AirStrip Technologies. Rank out of 1000? 410. Released: April 5, 2009. Details
10. Epic Haiku by Epic Systems. Rank out of 1000? 414. Released: January 8, 2010. Details

Continue >>

During our three days at the mHealth Summit in Washington DC this week, the MobiHealthNews team conducted dozens of interviews on camera for a forthcoming video produced and shot by Ethan Goldwater. The slideshow below includes some snapshots from the many mHealth luminaries we interviewed on-site.

mHealth Summit keynoter Bill Gates managed to tie the opportunity for mobile health to one of his current causes — vaccines — in various ways during his on-stage interview with Microsoft Research’s Kristin Tolle. (Photos by Ethan Goldwater) Continue >>