Several new smart-phone applications now allow family members of senior living residents to monitor their loved ones’ health-care information – including doctors’ appointments, medication schedules, and daily diagnostics. Researchers say the popularity of these applications – used mostly on iPhones and Blackberrys – has just recently begun to build momentum.
Three services lead the pack right now among smart-phone applications for tracking medical information and conditions – Ringful, Polka, and TheCarrot.com. Ringful, for example, has about 19,000 active users; it’s applications can also be used to record blood pressure, pulse measurements, and information about local hospitals. The company offers free smart-phone applications as well as premium versions of those apps for $4.99.
An article in The Wall Street Journal reports on recent findings by Forrester Research, confirming that only 3 percent of U.S. consumers currently use online medical records systems, which means the number of consumers using smart-phone applications to monitor their parents’ health-care information is still relatively low. However, in response to the growing numbers of tech-savvy baby boomers who rely on their iPhone and Blackberrys everyday, more companies are developing free mobile applications that will allow them to keep in touch with their parents, including the growing number of those parents who are residents of senior living communities.
Read The Wall Street Journal article, “Your iPhone Just Called: Your Blood-Sugar Is High.”
Read a recent article in Assisted Living Executive, “Collecting on Telemedicine’s Promise,” which looks at the technology updates that are making telemedicine practices a more feasible option for providers.
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