mHealth masters: Predicting the end of the stethoscope

From the mHealthNews archive
By Eric Wicklund
08:10 am

Jonathan Leviss, MD, FACP, is the senior vice president and medical director of AMC Health, a provider of real-time patient management solutions. He has more than 15 years of experience leveraging technology and informatics to transform healthcare by improving patient and provider experiences, advancing population health and reducing the cost of care. Prior to joining AMC Health, he was chief medical officer at the Rhode Island Quality Institute, overseeing development of CurrentCare (Rhode Island’s Health Information Exchange) and the RI Regional Extension Center, and leading technology adoption for the RI Beacon Community. Before RIQI, he was vice president and chief medical officer at Sentillion and the first chief medical informatics officer at NYC Health and Hospitals.

He is a primary care physician at Thundermist Health Center in Rhode Island and Clinical Assistant Professor of Health Services, Policy & Practice at the Brown University School of Public Health. He regularly writes and speaks on health information technology, physician leadership and innovation in healthcare. He received his Bachelor of Arts from Tufts University and MD from the NYU School of Medicine.

Q. What's the one promise of mHealth that will drive the most adoption over the coming year?

A. mHealth enables providers to more closely monitor and care for patients, without requiring the patients to physically go to the provider’s office or other location.


Q. What mHealth technology will become ubiquitous in the next 5 years? Why?

A. Vital sign monitors, weight scales, glucose monitors, medication and care plan compliance monitors and interactive patient assessments for pain, clinical symptoms and behavioral health will become ubiquitous. Video and telehealth visits will also become more common. These technologies already exist, and now health plans and providers share incentives, along with patients, to take advantage of their benefits.



Q. What's the most cutting-edge application you're seeing now? What other innovations might we see in the near future?

A. As a practicing primary care physician, I’m most excited by any technology that helps patients better manage their own health and wellness and can easily share information with their care team when needed.


Q. What mHealth tool or trend will likely die out or fail?

A. Auscultation devices (stethoscopes) will be replaced by ultrasound and other visualization tools - this will occur both in telehealth as well as “in-person” healthcare.