As part of Power Your Practice’s continuing examination of technologies in the mobile health space, we’re conducting interviews with the leaders of some of today’s most influential and innovative mHealth companies.
iTriage, a major influencer in the mHealth space, was founded with the vision of helping the world make better healthcare decisions. Millions of consumers have downloaded the free iTriage mobile app (myself included!), which, along with its web platform, helps patients answer their most common medical questions.
This week, we were lucky enough to discuss the innovations being brought to the market by iTriage with the company’s CEO and co-founder, Peter Hudson, M.D.
How does using the iTriage mobile app or website empower people to make better healthcare decisions?
To give you a little background, my co-founding partner Wayne Guerra, M.D. and I received many requests from friends, neighbors and family over our careers as emergency physicians. Those requests centered around two questions that we determined to be the most common related to health care issues: “What might I have?” and “Where should I go for treatment?”
We’d always felt that consumers should have this information readily available. Once Apple developed the iPhone and launched the iTunes App Store, we quickly realized that an application that would answer these questions could empower people with information about symptom, disease, procedure and medication information, then provide them with a decision tree within the application to help them know which was the most appropriate provider for any determined medical condition.
By putting this information in the hands of people around the globe, we’ve helped consumers understand more about their medical conditions, seek the appropriate level of care and be more informed, thus empowering them to take greater control of their health care at a time when physicians and health care providers have more demands on their time and less time to spend with patients.
What is iTriage’s “Symptom-to-Provider™” pathway?
iTriage trademarked the “Symptom-to-Provider™” Pathway to help people better understand that we not only offer symptom information but guide them forward all the way to the medical provider closest to them based on their GPS location or IP address. You can obtain more information about what this all means on our website here.
What makes your delivery of medical content different than that of, say, WebMD?
While WebMD offers a wealth of medical information to consumers, the company’s content was developed specifically for the Web. As a result, the content is deep and often provides more than a consumer requires to make a decision about their medical need. For those doing extensive research, it’s a great resource.
In contrast, iTriage was developed to be mobile-friendly and provide consumers with quick, reliable and actionable information to make on-the-go decisions about what they have and where they should seek treatment.
What can users track using the MyTriage feature of the mobile app?
This is a new area for iTriage and one that we are continuing to make more robust. Presently, a user can enter their insurance provider, access their Microsoft HealthVault PHR from their mobile device, track medical appointments, keep all health care provider contact information in one convenient location, as well as save diseases that they may have or would like to reference, procedure information that may be in consideration and medications that a user may be taking. This is extremely handy for those who want easy access to drug and food interactions and possible side effects to medications anywhere, anytime.
How do you find and partner with the providers on your network?
iTriage sourced the data for hospitals, urgent cares medical imaging and outpatient surgery centers; the physician data is sourced through National Plan & Provider Enumeration System and the Mental Health Center data is government sourced.
From those sources, our inside sales team connects with providers to share how iTriage can attract new patients through pushing out more information to mobile consumers like ER Wait Times, specialties, accreditations, photos and videos. Similarly, physicians and medical providers are finding that iTriage offers a unique way to provide more patient engagement that allows patients to connect with them through mobile and Web appointment setting and Early Check-In/ER Check-In.
What features do you plan to implement in the future to update or improve the iTriage platform?
iTriage listens intently to its premier physicians, medical providers and user recommendations. Certainly, as we roll out in more countries, extending the provider network, you’ll see additional language additions of iTriage in the future. Additionally, we’ll add more content to allow users to make more informed health care decisions. Our development team has its finger on the pulse of the latest platforms. As they rise in popularity, we address those growing base of users with yet another roll out of iTriage on that platform.
Mobile health is growing and changing all the time, as new tools, devices and products continue to enter marketplace. What mobile health innovations do you think will be most significant in the coming few years?
More connectivity between doctor and patient, as well as with medical providers and patients. Mobile phones can already do so much and we are relying on them for practically everything. Just the other day, we were asked by an iTriage user if we knew of an app that would allow her to put her phone against her head to determine her temperature. With this growing dependence upon applications for our every need, it’s understandable that consumers will drive the future innovations that we may see in mobile health.
Do you think mobile health has the power to improve the provider-patient experience? How?
Most definitely. People want on-the-go tools to not only connect with restaurants and travel-related companies but also with their health care. The health industry is a bit behind others in this regard, but they are quickly catching up. Consumers want immediate access to their medical providers. They want to email a physician practice for a lab result or vaccination record; they want to book appointments through their mobile phone and have pre-arrival communication with an emergency department so that the provider can make that experience a great one. Patients are ready and willing to do their part to improve that relationship and physicians and medical providers are now addressing those desires to meet their patients’ needs.
