Electronic Health Reporter

Guest post by Robert Oscar, R.Ph., founder of RxEOB.

Mobile technology has changed the way we live in dramatic fashion. Now it’s changing the way we access healthcare and medical information. In fact, the popularity of health-related smartphone apps as on-the-go tools has skyrocketed. Our smartphones and other mobile devices have made health and wellness choices simple and convenient.

More people than ever before are finding physicians, managing weight, controlling allergies, looking up symptoms, making doctor appointments and even checking into the hospital through their smartphones. For the house-bound and people living in rural areas, this technology can actually save lives by greatly improving connectivity and access to care, and streamlining self-management of such chronic diseases as diabetes, asthma and high blood pressure.

Health apps can also make medical-financial tasks easier, such as integrating financial data from high-deductible health plans or comparing prices between pharmacies. Furthermore, health apps can help streamline the flow of information between health plans, physicians and patients — making communication easier, quicker and more informative.

At work, employees can take greater control of their own health and work more closely with in-network healthcare providers. This is especially true for those who are looking to save money and reduce their out-of-pocket healthcare expenses.

Today, health-related apps are used mostly for accessing information, with some mobile devices making one-on-one interaction possible. As more hospitals and doctors begin to use apps, they will be able to reach more people with greater efficiency. Along these same lines, apps designed for physicians will become better at connecting to patients’ clinical records so that information can be easily shared — where and when it is need.

The impact of the mobile app revolution is expected to grow. In fact, a recent study found that nearly 17 million consumers were accessing health information on mobile devices in 2011, according to American Medical News, representing a 125 percent increase from 2010. These statistics have experts predicting that healthcare and medical app downloads will reach 44 million this year, and 142 million by 2016.

Consider the example of a large shipping company that participated in a pilot project involving a new mobile health app. Early reports showed that 42 percent of employees who used the app saved money on their prescription drug costs, according to Employee Benefit News. These employees had easy access to prescription drug plan information via their desktop and smartphones. End result, a whopping 71 percent of the participants said they’d recommend the service, and the company savings ranged between $174 and $366 per user per year.

Ultimately, health-related apps and the wealth of information they provide help patients become more engaged in their health so that they can make better choices, cuts costs and, eventually, help ease the strain on the US healthcare system.

Robert Oscar, R.Ph., has more than 25 years of experience in healthcare. Throughout much of his career, Oscar has developed and implemented successful programs to effectively manage pharmacy benefit risk including pioneering work in the Medicare HMO market. Before founding RxEOB more than a decade ago, Oscar worked in the medical information systems industry, designing, developing and implementing several different claims analysis tools. Licensed in Virginia and certified in pharmacy-based immunization, Oscar is a graduate of Ohio Northern University.