Smart phone app reinvents medical landscape

Looking up symptoms, finding out about medical procedures, picking a doctor and getting directions to the nearest hospital are now at the touch of a button in Healthagen LLC’s new smart phone application, iTriage.

The application, launched for iPhone a little over a year ago, is now available for the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Android phone and any phone with Web capability. Next week, the company plans to launch an app for Blackberry and Palm smart phones. The company also plans to sync the app with Google Health within the next few weeks, allowing users to pull their personal health records into the app.

Wayne Guerra, one of the two practicing emergency room doctors who created the application and founded Healthagen, said he and Peter Hudson, also an emergency room doctor, built the application to help patients navigate the healthcare environment.

“It takes a patient from a symptom to an appropriate provider,” Guerra said. “It helps them figure out what it might be, its causes, and it connects them to an appropriate level of care.”

An ER doctor for more than 25 years, Guerra and Hudson together have seen approximately 60,000 patients, Guerra said. Many of these patients struggled to make decisions about their medical care due to a lack of basic information about a disease, procedure, specific hospital or doctor.

“We see people making decisions in the wrong directions,” he said. “They are sometimes sent to urgent care instead of the ER – then they end up with delayed care, a bill from urgent care clinic that was unnecessary, and an ambulance bill.”

Additionally, now that not as many people can afford good health insurance, the app helps patients determine exactly what kind of care they need, or don’t, allowing them to save money.

The app combines information on more than 300 symptoms, 1,000 diseases, 350 medical procedures and a nationwide directory of hospitals, urgent care clinics, retail clinics, pharmacies and physicians.

The home screen of the application lists these options: “Call 911, find medical treatment, find a doctor, look up your symptoms, research diseases and learn about procedures.”

Picking a symptom from an alphabetical list can yield a description of a specific disease. From there, the user can learn about medical tests for the illness, how to treat it, images of it and find nearby medical help for the specific disease.

The app also allows users to view quality reports for doctors and hospitals.

Guerra and Hudson recently did an informal survey on the 16^th Street Mall. The two doctors knew there was an urgent care clinic 100 yards from where they were standing. They asked passersby where the nearest medical facility was, and most had no idea. The iTriage app can change that, Guerra said.

Some hospitals on the east coast and in Las Vegas now provide ER wait times for iTriage.

“iTriage is the very first mobile device to publish ER wait times,” Marcia Noyes, Heathagen’s Director of Marketing said. “It’s all about empowering people with their health.”

Andy Poland, a Highlands Ranch resident, said he used the application while on a business trip in Seattle.

“I got really sick and was sick through a whole night and I needed to see a doctor,” he said. “I went into the app, found a place within a few miles, got treated, got some antibiotics, and went home.”

Without the app, Poland said, the whole process of trying to find medical care would have been much more difficult.

“When you’re traveling, you never know when you’ll need it,” he said.

People working in the medical field use the application, as well.

Colorado Springs nurse Jane Murdock said she often uses the application in her office to do further research about diseases and procedures. Additionally, she can use it to help patients find proper care.

“I go to it frequently and I look there first,” she said. “I’ve told a gazillion people about it.”

Guerra said he is excited about the application’s future. The app’s upcoming merge with Google Health and recent recognition by Aneesh Chopra, the US Chief Technology Officer, will help propel the app and Healthagen forward. Guerra also hopes to add a social media component to the app this summer.

The app is available in the iTunes app store and at www.iTriageHeath.com.