Last week at the Games for Health Conference here in Boston, conference organizer Ben Sawyer told MassHighTech that eventually mobile fitness tracking applications and video games like EA Sports Active will integrate with electronic medical records.
The event featured Boston-area companies like AWare Technologies, FitnessKeeper, and Molecular, which all develop applications to track fitness data through mobile phones or the Web. Both FitnessKeeper and AWare make iPhone applications that leverage the handset's GPS functionality and accelerometer to track mileage and speed.
Another mobile-phone based service featured at the event was Adidas AG's miCoach, which debuted in March 2008. miCoach adds virtual coaching into the mix by including advice and encouragement for the users to run faster or slow down depending on their pace and heart rate.
What's the best case, future scenario for the "healthy game" proponents? Sawyer laid it down for MHT: "You go to your doctor's office and your doctor has your EA Sports Active profile and says, ‘Hey, you're doing really well.'"
Add that to the EMR checklist for meaningful use, health records wonks: Interoperability with video games.
For more, read this article from MassHighTech