smartphone apps

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5 Digital Health Trends You'll See In 2015

Leyl Master Black | Mashable | December 16, 2014

2014 has been a huge year for health tech. According to digital health incubator StartUp Health, digital health funding in the first three quarters of 2014 has already surpassed $5 billion, close to double what was invested in all of 2013 ($2.8 billion)...

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Can Smartphone Apps and EHRs Transform Mental Health Care?

Our relationship with technology is not unidirectional. We use it, and it changes us. But it cannot alter fundamental realities regardless of how hopeful Americans are or how much faith we have in it. More and better technology is not a substitute for adequate funding and coordinated planning, especially when we’re talking about the very significant funding issues around behavioral health. Sure, we can get excited about the newest app and the latest EHR functionality, but we must also maintain a focus on meeting the needs of the mental health professionals committed to keeping our fellow citizens from falling through the cracks. Even while there is no magic in technology, there is also no reason to believe we can’t fix a broken mental health system through hard work, empathy and thoughtful planning. Time and again, our faith in those principles has been rewarded.

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Coming Next: Using an App as Prescribed

Joshua Brustein | New York Times | August 19, 2012

Before long, your doctor may be telling you to download two apps and call her in the morning. Smartphone apps already fill the roles of television remotes, bike speedometers and flashlights. Soon they may also act as medical devices, helping patients monitor their heart rate or manage their diabetes, and be paid for by insurance.

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Crisis Communication: Saving Time and Lives in Disasters through Smarter Social Media

As the worst bushfires seen for generations in New South Wales raged across the Blue Mountains, Southern Highlands and the Central Coast two years ago, people urgently needed fast, reliable information – and many turned to their phones to get it. The NSW Rural Fire Service was prepared with a smartphone app, Fires Near Me, which was downloaded almost 200,000 times. At the height of the fires, its Facebook page was recording more than a million views an hour. A social media campaign also helped the NSW Rural Fire Service Facebook community more than double from 120,000 to 280,000, while its Twitter reach jumped from 20,000 to 37,000 followers. Crucially, this helped to alert people to danger areas and places to avoid driving near...

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Drugs You Don't Need For Disorders You Don't Have

Jonathon Cohn | The Huffington Post | March 31, 2016

One evening in the late summer of 2015, Lisa Schwartz was watching television at her Vermont home when an ad for a sleeping pill called Belsomra appeared on the screen. Schwartz, a longtime professor at Dartmouth Medical College, usually muted commercials, but she watched this one closely: a 90-second spot featuring a young woman and two slightly cute, slightly creepy fuzzy animals in the shape of the words “sleep” and “wake”...

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Facebook Makes The Animation Library Behind Paper Open Source

Lauren Hockenson | GIGAOM | April 28, 2014

The animation generator behind Facebook’s Paper will now be available as open source for mobile developers...The company plans to announce today that the animation engine behind Paper, Pop, will be available to developers as an open source tool.

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Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?

Jean M. Twenge | The Atlantic | August 10, 2017

One day last summer, around noon, I called Athena, a 13-year-old who lives in Houston, Texas. She answered her phone—she’s had an iPhone since she was 11—sounding as if she’d just woken up. We chatted about her favorite songs and TV shows, and I asked her what she likes to do with her friends. “We go to the mall,” she said. “Do your parents drop you off?,” I asked, recalling my own middle-school days, in the 1980s, when I’d enjoy a few parent-free hours shopping with my friends. “No—I go with my family,” she replied. “We’ll go with my mom and brothers and walk a little behind them. I just have to tell my mom where we’re going. I have to check in every hour or every 30 minutes.”...

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Open Source Software Is Transforming Healthcare

In the summer of 2022, the UK government and NHS England published its Open Source Policy, stating that open source technology is: Particularly suitable for use within the healthcare industry where, through active collaboration between IT suppliers and user/clinicians communities, solutions can be honed to maximise benefits to delivery of health and social care. The public statement by NHS England is just the latest development in a broader trend: The wholehearted embrace of open source software by the healthcare sector. And no wonder; open source presents myriad opportunities for this most complex of industries, with potential solutions across various sub-sectors. Yes, open source is now powering everything from medical wearables to healthcare human resource management.

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See How I Dropped 83 Pounds With The Help Of A Smartphone

Owen Thomas | Say Media Inc. | October 17, 2013

Three and a half years ago, I got my first modern smartphone. And I discovered that the world of apps it unlocked—the ease of tracking my exercise and nutrition on the go—were the key to finally doing something about my longstanding weight problem.

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The Pathway to Patient Data Ownership and Better Health

Katherine A. Mikk, Harry A. Sleeper, and Eric J. Topol | JAMA | September 25, 2017

Digital health data are rapidly expanding to include patient-reported outcomes, patient-generated health data, and social determinants of health. Measurements collected in clinical settings are being supplemented by data collected in daily life, such as data derived from wearable sensors and smartphone apps, and access to other data, such as genomic data, is rapidly increasing. One projection suggests that a billion individuals will have their whole genome sequenced in the next several years. These additional sources of data, whether patient-generated, genomic, or other, are critical for a comprehensive picture of an individual’s health...

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WebMD Launches Health Improvement Program for iPhone to Make Biometric Data Understandable and Actionable

Press Release | WebMD | June 16, 2014

Today, WebMD Health Corp...launched WebMD Healthy Target, an integrated health improvement program that uses biometric device data from activity trackers, wireless scales and glucose meters to deliver tailored, physician-reviewed, contextually relevant content and motivational tips to individuals looking to develop sustainable health-conscious habits. Read More »