The Smartphone app he's designing is supposed to help patients adhere to the recommendations of their doctors.

1. These apps can make patients more apt to follow doctor’s orders
These apps can make patients more apt to follow doctor’s orders
After all, we can all use a little 'nudge' to stay on track with a healthy
lifestyle.
By Ann Tracy Mueller | Posted: October 5, 2011
When the National Institutes of Health recently announced more than $140
million in grants "to encourage creative ideas in science," C. Jason Wang,
M.D., Ph.D. was among the 79 grant recipients.
The Smartphone app he's designing is supposed to help patients adhere to
the recommendations of their doctors.
Stanford School of Medicine's Scope blog reports that Wang plans to
conduct a study where patients will choose rewards that motivate them.
During the study, participants will randomly be chosen to receive different
types of "nudges" encouraging healthy behavior, such as "reminder
messages or information about the benefits of the good behavior."
http://www.healthcarecommunication.com/Mobile/Articles/7643.aspx

2. These apps can make patients more apt to follow doctor’s orders
The research will target these areas with poor treatment adherence:
Flossing teeth
Diet and exercise modification in obese patients
Asthma treatment
Diabetes treatment
"This is the last mile of health-care delivery," Wang says in the Scope article.
"Doctors can follow treatment guidelines, but at the end of the day, if
patients don't follow through, treatment recommendations are not going to
be effective."
Apps for midlife and older adults
Another Scope article tells of a Stanford team working on three smartphone
apps to "motivate midlife and older adults to improve daily health habits."
The apps use the smartphone's accelerometer, along with a custom program
that monitors when the user walks or runs.
One app provides visual feedback of activity levels so users know "if they're
meeting daily healthy habit goals."
Another app places participants in social groups with others who have
similar goals, tracking progress as it compares them to others in the groups.
And for those Angry Birds fans, the third app lets users "'adopt' a virtual pet
bird." The bird shows good or bad health symptoms based on its owner's
daily health habits.
Do you know of behavior modification apps that work? How do you share
information on new apps with patients?
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3. These apps can make patients more apt to follow doctor’s orders
We have been witnessing the fast-paced advancements in the arena of smart
phone apps over the past 2 years. Making it more intuitive and getting it closer to
the psicy of the user are going to be the differentiating factors in times to come
feels Dr. Chitalia of Acroseas Global Solutions. Can these apps make the
patient/consumer act on the results that pop up post interacting with the app?
The day is not far away.
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