Introducing iPhone, M.D.

Your smart phone can do amazing things: video chat with friends, check the latest scores for your favorite Indian cricket team, or play Scrabble with your co-worker. But your smart phone more than fun and games. The latest additions to the smartphone app market may just end up saving your life.

Your smartphone can become  a head-to-toe health care tool. From monitoring your ears with CellScope, your sleep habits with Zeo Sleep Manger or Sleep Cycle, your eating habits with My Fitness Pal or The Eatery or your fertility with DuoFertility Monitor, the mHealth (the use of mobile technology in healthcare) is growing.

According Fast Co., mobile health technology is currently a $2 billion of the $273 billion medical-device industry. And that number is skyrocketing. Experts believe the number will continue to grow as smart phones get smarter and patients take their health into their own hands.

Up next? The FDA plans to release a rigorous set of guidelines for mobile health applications later this year. A more formalized process will make entering the market easier and energize the mHealth market.

What does this mean for your healthcare organization? It’s time to pay attention to mHealth.

• Keep an eye out for great new apps and products that may help cut costs–a new app and accessory for eye exams is literally .3% the cost of its predecessor.
• Think ahead – mobile health portals may soon allow patients who track their health via apps to plug into your EMR. Imagine that data shared seamlessly with your medical staff.
• Try them out yourself. After all, you deserve to be happy and healthy, too. Check out our favorite apps for staying fit and healthy.
• Get your own app–from ER wait times to tips and calendars for pregnant moms. The possibilities are endless.
• If it isn’t already, make your site mobile friendly. While this isn’t an app, it is mHealth. If your website isn’t compatible with prevalent mobile technology, you are missing a golden opportunity. 1 in 7 searches are now mobile and that number is even higher for local searches.

Have more ideas for mHealth? Know an mHealth guru? Need more inspiration? We love sharing our thoughts and  talking with other experts in health and wellness. Give us a shout. 

The Future of Joint Replacement

We all know that with Boomers approaching 65+, joint replacement procedures are becoming more and more common, right? But the actual statistics are pretty staggering.

For example:

• Over a million joint replacements were performed in the U.S. last year, up from 575,000 in 2000
• One in 30 Americans now has at least one replaced joint, up from one in 60 just 10 years ago
• Knee replacements are projected to increase by 600% in the next 20 years

Thanks to some amazing innovations over the past couple of decades like the female-specific artificial knee and new ceramic joints, the lives of millions have been improved. But with the demand for this service projected to skyrocket, what will tomorrow’s joint replacement look like?

In addition to volume of procedures increasing rapidly, so are costs. According to the January 2010 article “Overspending on Orthopedics”, costs for the most common joint replacements, hips and knees, have risen by over 10% annually for the last decade due primarily to the amount of procedures being performed. What’s the solution?

Dr. Kevin Stone puts his money on biologic joint replacement: using animal stem cells to regrow damaged parts of the joint to avoid a full artificial joint replacement procedure as well as save on the high costs associated with human-to-human stem cell transplants. In the video below he explains how these procedures work, shares some amazing success stories and describes his vision for the future.

What do you think the future of joint replacement care will hold?