Purpose: To test the feasibility and uptake of a Hospital-Medicine based program for prescribing mobile health applications to hospitalized patients, using a private company developed mobile app platform that enables physicians to point patients to specific mobile health applications for download on an internet-enabled mobile device.
Description: We partnered with QuintilesIMS to deploy their mobile health app prescribing platform. The prescribing platform was selected based on the following criteria: technical approach, product specifications, platform cost, prior experience and expertise of the company creating the platform. We then selected two mobile health applications that would be broadly applicable to a population of patients admitted to the Hospital Medicine service at our academic Medical Center: Epic’s MyChart, a patient portal where patients can view test results and communicate with their providers, and Medisafe, a medication adherence application for patients.
We enrolled patients, admitted to the Medicine Service, to use the platform who met predetermined inclusion criteria (Figure 1). Seventy-one patients were enrolled. Patients were alerted of a mobile application prescription via email or SMS, which could be accessed by enrolling for the application platform (Figure 2). Of the 71 enrolled patients, 71 patients (100%) received a text or email alerting them of a mobile application prescription. 46 patients (65%) accessed the application prescription for Medisafe, and 48 patients (68%) accessed the application prescription for MyChart. 30 patients (40%) accessed the download links for Medisafe, 32 patients (42%) accessed the download links for MyChart. Collection of download, utilization and patient experience data are in the progress of collection.
Conclusions: Closer public-private partnerships may be helpful in bringing novel technology programs to the bedside. Patients appear to have interest in accessing technologies recommended to them by their providers.