Fourteen major U.S. hospitals are experimenting with trial programs using the Apple HealthKit tools, which provide health and fitness tracking on iPhones and iPads.
I recently upgraded to an iPhone 5S, which came with the Health app installed. The software will track an incredible variety of health and fitness factors. Some of the data requires manual entry and/or a separate health device (like a blood pressure monitor), but right out of the box, the app starts tracking the number of steps and distance traveled in a day, using the iPhone's built in motion sensor. The difference between my level of physical activity during the work week (sitting at a desk most of the day) and the weekend is an eyeopener, and has made me realize that I need to walk more--every day. It is also interesting how much exercise I get on travel days; while it feels like I spend the whole day sitting in an airplane, the distances I have to walk in airports is good news for my health. The realtime graphs turn exercise into a bit of a game, where it becomes a challenge to see if I can beat yesterday's distance/step numbers.
But this is the tip of the iceberg. As more Bluetooth-enabled health monitoring devices become available (e.g. a blood pressure cuff that can talk, via Bluetooth, directly to the iPhone), more and better kinds of data will be available, and this will improve early diagnosis of problems--and in turn, save enormous amounts of money--early treatment is almost always less expensive.
Broadband is still regarded by many as a kind of luxury...."who needs a Gig?" is a question I hear almost daily as Design Nine rebuilds the nation's broadband infrastructure, one community at a time. Broadband and the Internet are not just about Netflix, buying stuff from Amazon, and gaming. Just as the music industry was disrupted by the iPod and the Internet-enabled iTunes store, health care is about to see major disruptions, and those changes will benefit all of us....if we have the right kind of connectivity.
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