As more smart health solutions and medical devices compete for clinician and consumer adoption, questions about measurable benefits for health are coming to the fore. Widespread adoption of iPhone (News - Alert) and other smart phones by physicians may well lead to a new acceptance of devices and applications that across the industry. Mobile application developer Epocrates noted recently that Epocrates apps are now used by more than 900,000 physicians globally and a recent survey of about 350 clinicians found 60 percent are interested in the iPad and 20 percent intend to buy one immediately. Transforming the role of patients and empowering them to manage their own conditions are trends being discussed at HIMSS in Atlanta as well as at healthcare events around the United States. At a recent UC Berkeley Healthcare Conference sponsored by the Hass School of Business, these same topics were addressed by a number of panelists.

Barbara Pantuso, Director of Healthcare Innovation at Frog Design, focused her presentation at UC Berkeley on new products and tools to help patients prevent and control chronic diseases. Frog Design is a global innovation firm that has developed smart devices and mobile health solutions for multiple clients, including the Helicor Stress Eraser, the Aesculap OrthoPilot and clinician’s Dosimeter badges for Mirion Technologies. Citing a CDC report, Pantuso said that by 2020, “one of every 5 dollars of the GDP will go to healthcare, and 75 percent of those costs are from chronic diseases.” She pointed out that while chronic diseases are the most costly, they are also the most preventable.

According to Pantuso, being social is healthy, and positive behavior is contagious. “Mortality rates, are two to four times higher for people who are isolated”, Pantuso said, “So being social is healthy”. The intersection of three important technologies –biosensors, data aggregation and social networking—gives patients access to information and control over their healthcare. She listed a number of new products and applications that leverage the technologies and lead to the “observer effect” where merely being watched leads to behavior modification.

As patient centric devices, apps and social networking sites proliferate, there is a tremendous amount of personal health data that is generated and, in some cases, collected for the benefit of all. One example is patientslikeme. Started by Ben and James Heywood after dealing with lack of information and resources when their brother Steve was diagnosed with ALS, patientslikeme.com now includes over 10 chronic and rare diseases and a number of psychological disorders. Patients are encouraged to provide as much information about their symptoms, condition and drug interactions as possible to help enable others in their communities to make informed decisions. Although not a formal study with standard methodology, patient initiated and recorded data can be extremely helpful to others and large scale data mining can be very beneficial as long as a patient’s privacy is protected.

While many institutions cling to paper records and keep the patient dependent on them for access to information, Kaiser Permanente has chosen a different path. Holly Potter, vice president of public relations, spoke about the health insurance’s approach to social media and “medicine 2.0.' With over 3 million members on their site, users have filled some 2 million prescriptions, scheduled a quarter of a million appointments and viewed over 21,000 lab reports, all on line. The ability to ask questions and get information through the site has resulted in a “26 percent drop in face to face visits,' according to Potter. Kaiser has migrated to all electronic medical records and the transition has been very successful. To the inevitable question about the privacy of individual information, Potter believes EMRs are more protected than paper records which are often open in offices or nurses station for anyone to look at.

“Somehow banks have managed to handle the privacy question, there is no reason we can’t,” Potter explained, “we carefully monitor and track who looks at and accesses records.”

As healthcare professionals join consumers in the adoption of new devices, applications and social media, one hopes that institutions and policy makers will get on board and see that innovation can indeed enhance their efforts to lower costs and improve quality.