Blog Posts on Patient Identification in Healthcare

Iris Biometrics Deployments Increasing for Patient Identification in Healthcare

June 11, 2015/4068 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG /by John Trader

The following post was written by David Cuberos, Enterprise Sales Consultant with RightPatient®

This week, we announced another hospital that has adopted our biometric patient identification platform using iris biometrics. Like most hospitals who adopt biometrics for patient ID, Terrebonne Regional Medical Center in Houma, LA conducted a thorough evaluation of several different biometric modalities (including fingerprint and palm vein) and ultimately concluded that iris biometrics was the best fit to help accomplish the goals established before the deployment – reduction of duplicate and overlay medical records, elimination of healthcare fraud and medical identity theft, patient data integrity improvement, and raising patient safety standards. Plus, Terrebonne staff recognized that iris biometrics for identification is readily accepted by patients – a key metric to ensure deployment success.

Using-RightPatient-for-patient-identification-helps-increase-patient-safety

Terrebonne General Medical Center (TGMC) is the latest hospital to leverage the advantages of iris biometrics for patient identification.

As we continue our journey to help hospitals across the world establish safer and more secure methods of identifying patients to ensure their safety across the care continuum, increasingly we see more healthcare organizations opting to deploy iris biometrics over other modalities because of the distinct, unique advantages that this technology offers:

Hygiene – Iris biometrics used a sophisticated digital camera to take a photograph of a patient, requiring no contact with a hardware device by the patient to help support hospital infection control and eliminate the spread of germs, bacteria, and illness.
Biometric matching type – The only way to prevent duplicate medical records and healthcare fraud while at the same time improving patient data integrity is to deploy a biometric patient identification solution that compares a captured biometric enrollment template and compares it to all stored templates in a database during enrollment – otherwise known as a “one-to-many” comparison. It is proven to be the only way to increase patient data integrity across an HIE or IDN and iris biometrics has the unique ability to deliver this one-to-many biometric matching type. In addition, if healthcare organizations seek to leverage biometrics for patient identification to identify unconscious patients, the only way to accomplish this is through a one-to-many biometric matching system.
Search speed & accuracy – Iris biometrics for patient identification in healthcare offers the fastest and most accurate technology on the market. For example, iris biometrics has the capability to search a database containing millions of records and provide a match or non-match within seconds. Plus, iris recognition is widely viewed across the biometrics industry as one of, if not the most accurate biometric identification technology.
Stability – Did you know that the human iris fully develops at 10 months of age, and remains stable throughout your life? Wikipedia describes the iris as:

“…an internal organ that is well protected against damage and wear by a highly transparent and sensitive membrane (the cornea). This distinguishes it from fingerprints, which can be difficult to recognize after years of certain types of manual labor. The iris is mostly flat, and its geometric configuration is only controlled by two complementary muscles (the sphincter pupillae and dilator pupillae) that control the diameter of the pupil. This makes the iris shape far more predictable than, for instance, that of the face.” (via Wikipedia, http://bit.ly/1B8Zlls)

This stability eliminates the need to re-enroll patients as is the case with other biometric patient identification systems that rely on alternate credentials, such as palm vein.

Our experience across a wide variety of healthcare environments with varying conditions has proven that when offered the choice of modalities, more hospitals are turning to iris biometrics for patient identification because of the unique advantages it offers over the alternatives. We expect to see iris biometrics for patient ID continue to proliferate around the world as the single, trusted source to ensure the highest levels of patient safety and to help improve patient data integrity both at the local and national levels.

Watch a short video on the reasons that Terrebonne implemented iris biometrics for patient identification:

What are your thoughts on the use of iris recognition for patient identification in healthcare? Please share your thoughts and comments with us below.

David Cuberos is an Enterprise Sales Consultant with RightPatient® helping hospitals and healthcare organizations realize the benefits of implementing biometrics for patient identification to; increase patient safety, eliminate duplicate medical records and overlays, and prevent medical identity theft and healthcare fraud.

Uniting Accurate Patient Identification with Secure Single Sign-On (SSO) to Improve Data Integrity in Healthcare

May 26, 2015/5937 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG /by John Trader

Today we announced a new strategic alliance with Healthcast, Inc. to bring biometric patient ID and single sign-on (SSO) technology to healthcare.

One of the biggest obstacles facing the healthcare industry is ensuring high levels of patient data integrity. As computerization of health information continues and the scope of health information organizational exchange expands into health information exchanges (HIEs), and integrated delivery networks (IDNs), maintaining the integrity and completeness of health data is paramount yet much more complicated and challenging. The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) recently stated that:

“The overarching goal of HIEs is to allow authorized users to quickly and accurately exchange health information to enhance patient safety and improve efficiency. Achieving this goal is dependent on the ability to link (match) multiple, disparate records relating to a single individual.” (Insuring Data Integrity in Health Data Exchange, AHIMA Resources, 2012)

Achieving high levels of patient data integrity in healthcare is largely contingent upon establishing accurate patient identification — a complex process due to the absence of any standardized patient identification credentials and a lack of consistency on how patient identification information is collected. Implementing a secure patient identification system should be the precursor to any patient data integrity improvement strategy, one that has the ubiquity for use at ANY patient touchpoint (e.g. portals, mHealth, and kiosks) and has the power to prevent duplicate medical records and fraud which can quickly poison an electronic health record database and create a host of “dirty data.”

Coupled with the importance of deploying a modern patient identification system is the urgency to establish stricter single sign-on (SSO) security protocols for access to personal health information (PHI) from clinicians or any staff authorized to view this data. Healthcare data breaches continue to pose a tremendous strain on the industry, recently highlighted in The Ponemon Institute’s 2015 2nd Annual Data Breach forecast which states:

“Healthcare organizations face the challenge of securing a significant amount of sensitive information stored on their network, which combined with the value of a medical identity string makes them an attractive target for cybercriminals.” (2015 Second Annual Data Breach Industry Forecast, The Ponemon Institute, 2015)

A logical first step for any healthcare provider is to implement stronger SSO technology to simplify and secure access to PHI that helps deter fraud, prevent duplicate medical records, and increase operational efficiencies.

In an effort to help introduce and increase adoption of arguably the two most important components that will improve patient data integrity for any healthcare organization, today we announced a new strategic alliance with Healthcast — joining forces to offer our best-of-breed biometric patient identification solution with their #1 ranked single sign-on solution (KLAS, 2014) to increase patient safety and secure access to patient data.

Identify Unconscious, Unknown Patients with Biometric Identification Technology

May 16, 2015/12195 views / 2 Comments/in BLOG /by John Trader

RightPatient-can-be-used-to-identify-unconscious-patients

Unconscious, unknown patients pose a serious threat to patient safety

It’s 4:00 am and things are quiet in the ER. Patient traffic has slowed to a trickle, clinicians are busy treating existing patients, and support staff is completing paperwork and administrative tasks during the downtime. Suddenly, you get a fervent call that paramedics are en route to your facility with an unconscious, unidentified trauma patient, spitting out their vital signs and condition while the clinical staff leaps into action to prepare for their arrival. The ambulance roars into the ED bay with wailing sirens and flickering lights, the ED doors swing open, and the patient is quickly ushered in on a stretcher and into an exam room for immediate treatment.

Did you know that not all biometric patient identification technologies have the ability to identify unconscious, unknown patients?

Dealing with unconscious patients in a hospital environment can be a dangerous event. Each facility has its own protocol for identifying unknown emergency room patients that usually involves assigning the patient an identification tag with a hospital number or medical record number, but the dangers and risks of treating a patient with no identification rise precipitously in the absence of any formal identification credentials. Unanswered questions about their past medical history is a significant risk and pose a direct threat to patient safety.

Using biometrics to identify unconscious patients

What if there was a way to identify an unconscious patient and quickly access their medical history prior to treatment? Thanks to the increasing adoption of biometrics for patient identification, many hospitals are now equipped with a way to quickly and accurately identify unconscious patients through a fast biometric scan.

What’s important to know however is that unfortunately, not all biometric patient identification technologies have the ability to identify unconscious, unknown patients contrary to the widespread belief that they can.

Why? Biometric patient identification technologies are not all cut from the same mold and while some do indeed contain the ability to identify unconscious patients, back-end search capabilities limit others from being able to do so.

What’s often misunderstood about using biometrics for patient identification is how the back end search technology actually determines a patient’s identity. To illustrate, let’s take 2 examples of patients who walk into two different hospital ED departments – one that uses palm vein biometrics for patient identification and the other that uses iris recognition.

Scenario #1 – John Doe steps through the doors of hospital A’s ED department and approaches the registration counter. A patient access coordinator asks the patient for their date of birth and then instructs them to place their hand on a palm vein reader which verifies their identity and then displays the unique medical record that has been linked to their biometric credentials. This search methodology is referred to as “1:Few segmented identification” which compares a captured biometric template against a portion of the total biometric database. Prior to capturing John Doe’s biometrics, a credential needs to be provided prior to the biometric scan to determine which templates should be compared against. The biometric system would then compare the captured template against only those templates that share the same birth date.
Scenario #2 – Jane Doe arrives at hospital B’s ED and is greeted by the patient access coordinator. Without asking any questions, Jane’s picture is taken with an iris camera that subsequently confirms her identity and pulls up the medical record that has been linked to her biometric credentials. This biometric matching type is referred to as “one-to-many identification” (1:N) which compares Jane’s captured biometric template against all stored templates. No other information is required besides the biometric scan.

1:N matching does not require patients to provide an identity credential prior to performing a biometric scan which means that if an unknown, unconscious patient arrives at a hospital their identity can be quickly and accurately determined, even if they can’t speak.

One to many searches are the only way to identify unconscious patients

Now imagine John Doe arriving at hospital A unconscious without any identification. If the hospital is using palm vein biometrics for patient identification, how will John be able to provide his birth date prior to someone placing his hand on the palm vein reader? The answer is that he can’t, rendering the system ineffective for identity verification on the unconscious, unidentifiable patients.

If Jane Doe was unconscious and arrived at hospital B who uses iris biometrics for patient identification, clinicians could gently raise her eyelids, take her picture with an iris camera and instantly determine her identity without requiring any additional information.

Understanding the functionality of back end biometric searches can help guide healthcare facilities in the right direction prior to adopting the technology if the identification of unconscious, unknown patients is important.

Learn more about the advantages of deploying a biometric patient identification system to increase patient safety through the “Resources” section of our Web site.

Biometric Patient Identification CIO Testimonial Video

May 7, 2015/5129 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG /by John Trader

Like many who attended the 2015 HIMSS trade show in Chicago, we were excited (and a bit overwhelmed) at the amount of health IT knowledge and information swirling around the exhibit halls and aisle/booth conversations between attendees and vendors. One theme that we were excited to see is the continued surge of implementing biometrics for patient identification by many healthcare organizations that understand it’s value to help:

1. eliminate duplicate medical records
2. prevent healthcare fraud and medical identity theft at the point of service
3. Increase patient safety

testimonial on using iris biometrics for patient identification

Learn more about how our RightPatient biometric patient identification solution can help your healthcare organization through this firsthand testimonial from a hospital CIO.

Ever since the use of biometrics for patient identification arrived on the scene just a few short years ago, many hospitals are now reaping the dividends of this technology to achieve the aforementioned benefits and helping to add revenue back to the bottom line by cutting back on fraud and eliminating medical errors resulting from patient misidentification. The future of implementing biometrics for patient identification is bright, and increasing it’s luminosity as more hospitals and healthcare organizations learn about how the technology works to improve patient data integrity.

We took a moment to sit down with the Healthcare Data Management team in their booth on the HIMSS trade show floor to participate in a video interview about our RightPatient® healthcare biometrics patient identification solution to help explain it’s advantages and unique qualities plus provide a firsthand testimonial from a hospital CIO who has implemented our platform using iris recognition.

The interview includes firsthand testimonial from Lee Powe at Hugh Chatham Memorial Hospital in Elkin, NC about how he originally deployed palm vein biometrics for patient ID, but quickly switched to the RightPatient solution using iris biometrics once he saw the advantages plus what results Hugh Chatham has realized since first deploying the technology including: reductions in duplicate medical records, elimination of Medicaid fraud, and a high level of patient acceptance.

Michael Trader from RightPatient is then interviewed to describe the iris biometric patient identification platform, what makes it unique, and why healthcare providers should consider implementation.

Thanks to the staff at Health Data Management for the opportunity to discuss what makes our biometric patient identification solution unique, and allow us to feature Lee’s testimonial on why he values the technology to help increase patient safety and reduce healthcare fraud at Hugh Chatham.

Post Show Thoughts on Biometric Patient Identification from the 41st Annual NAHAM Conference

April 28, 2015/3650 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG /by John Trader

The following post was submitted by Brad Marshall, Enterprise Development Consultant with RightPatient®

Last week we wrapped up participation in the 41st Annual National Association of Healthcare Access Management (NAHAM) trade show in Indianapolis, IN. We were happy to be represented as a healthcare biometric patient identificaiton and data integrity vendor, demonstrating the strength and ubiquity of our solution and offering demos of iris recognition as a smart modality to consider for patient ID in a healthcare environment.

Misunderstandings of biometric patient identification technologies was a recurring theme we observed at the 41st Annual NAHAM trade show.

Through our conversations with NAHAM trade show attendees, we learned a lot about their perceptions of biometric patient identification and helped to clear up common misunderstandings of how the technology works to keep patients safe, eliminate duplicate medical records, and prevent healthcare fraud and medical identity theft at the point of service. Common misunderstandings, their clarifications, and key takeaways included:

Misunderstanding – All biometric patient identificaiton technologies have the ability to prevent duplicate medical records, eliminate fraud and ID theft in real time, and improve medical data record integrity.
Clarification – The ONLY way to prevent duplicate medical records and improve patient data integrity with biometrics is to implement a system that, during patient enrollment, compares a captured template against ALL stored templates in the biometric database. This is known as a “one-to-many” (1:N) comparison. It’s also the only way to ensure high levels of data integrity across the HIE or IDN.
Takeaway – Understanding the differences in biometric matching is vital if you expect the system to prevent duplicate medical records and improve medical record data integrity. If you are relying on biometric patient ID technology that segments the EHR database (i.e. – entering a date of birth) prior to performing a search, this is not a true way to prevent duplicates, fraud, or medical ID theft.
For more information, please click here.
Misunderstanding – Biometric hardware devices that require patient contact are acceptable in a healthcare environment.
Clarification – Biometric hardware modalities that require physical contact by a patient do not support hospital infection control policies and open the door to spreading germs and illness. Plus, patients are less likely to enroll in a biometric patient identification system that requires physical contact (e.g. – palm vein and fingerprint) over modalities that do not require any contact (e.g. – iris recognition).
Takeaway – Patient acceptance and subsequent enrollment in a biometric patient identificaiton initiative is critical to the success of the deployment. Patients are less likely to enroll in a biometric patient ID system when it requires physical contact with a hardware device.
For more information, please click here.
Misunderstanding – Experience in the biometrics industry doesn’t matter in the context of deploying a patient identification system within a healthcare environment.
Clarification – The success of any biometric identification management deployment is largely dependent on a solution provider’s experience deploying biometrics in a variety of physical and geographical environments to draw from that wisdom and customize the solution to fit the unique needs of any end user. Chances are, healthcare facilities would rather work with a vendor that has a long track record of deploying biometric identification management projects around the world in a host of environments with varying conditions and has the ability to discern implementing the most effective and sustainable hardware and software solutions that will maximize return on investment (ROI).
Takeaway – When performing due diligence on biometric patient identification vendors, don’t discount experience as a key factor in your decision to invest. Vendors that have a long history of experience in deploying biometric technology in a variety of industries and offer cloud applications, system integration, high-performance computing, human factor engineering, and machine learning helps to ensure that you will always be provided with innovative, scalable, practical solutions that are the best possible fit for your needs.
For more information, please click here.
Misunderstanding – Biometric patient identifcation technologies only apply to patients who have physical identifcation credentials.
Clarification – We heard quite a few attendees comment that due to limitations in their existing biometric patient identification solutions, they only enroll patients who can physically present official identification documentation leaving all other problem areas unaddressed (e.g. – patients without identification, “frequent flyers,” drug seekers, etc.). The truth is that a core value of an effective biometric patient identification solutions is it’s ability to enroll ALL patients, regardless of the conditions that exist to truly capitalize on the purpose of implementing the system – to protect patient safety and eliminate duplicates, fraud, and ID theft.
Takeaway – Biometric patient identification vendors who offer the ability to reliably verify a patient’s claimed identity prior to his/her initial biometric enrollment add more value by ensuring that a patient can verify their claimed identity which produces cleaner data.
For more information, click here.

As a biometric patient identification solution provider who spends a lot of time at healthcare trade shows listening to feedback from healthcare professionals on their perception and understanding of this technology, we hear quite a few misunderstandings about how it actually works and a solution’s capabilities to accomplish the stated objective of increasing patient safety, eliminating duplicate medical records, and preventing fraud and medical ID theft. As a biometric technology vendor with over a decade of experience implementing solutions in a variety of verticals and environments around the world, we understand the criteria that leads to a successful deployment. Please visit our “Resources” Web site page to learn more about biometric patient identification and dispel some of the common misunderstandings that exist.

What was your biggest takeaway from the 41st Annual NAHAM conference?

P.S. – Congratulations to Anne Marie Mariani, Corporate Director of Patient Access at St. Luke’s Hospital and Healthcare for winning the $100 Amazongift certificate we raffled off at our booth!

Brad Marshall is an Enterprise Development Consultant with RightPatient®. With several years of experience implementing both large and small scale biometric patient identification projects in healthcare, Brad works closely with key hospital executives and front line staff to ensure project success.

RightPatient® Hosts #HITsm Tweet Chat on mHealth Healthcare Apps and Wearables

March 25, 2015/1994 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG /by John Trader

We have the honor of hosting this week’s @HealthStandards #HITsm tweet chat on the topic of healthcare apps and wearables – two digital health tools that have recently surged in popularity to help patients better manage personal health and contain or prevent chronic disease conditions. Despite the popularity of these mhealth tools, the healthcare industry is just beginning to wrap it’s arms around how to not only aggregate and transfer the clinical, fitness, wellness and nutritional data generated by these devices to a patient’s electronic health record (EHR), but more importantly, how to gain wisdom from the data to ultimately improve both individual and population health outcomes.

The rise of mhealth healthcare apps and wearables promises to change individual and population health, but what barriers exist to realize the full potential of these tools?

Dig deeper into the discussion of mhealth apps and wearables and you will discover that behind the vendor hype, there are a lot of unanswered questions, unresolved issues, barriers, and “stickiness” problems that have people wondering if these tools will truly have the purported impact on the industry that their designers claim. Some believe that from a design perspective “there is a chasm between the good intentions of the Brand/Company and the needs of the patient.” Others feel that in the absence of a palpable and effective interoperability initiative that actually works and helps with the free flow of data between disparate systems, mhealth apps and wearables will never truly reach their full potential to not only improve individual health, but also allow clinicians to mine data and identify patterns and trends that may lead to radical improvements in population health.

Recent market developments indicating that mhealth vendors are beginning to ink deals with major EHR providers to aggregate and populate data from these devices into a patient’s health record breathes life into the manifestation of patient generated health data collected by mHealth devices to the clinical record, and according to a recent article on mhealthnews, “lends weight to the argument that wellness and fitness information can be important to the healthcare provider.” Despite the optimism, not everyone is as excited about the surge in apps and wearables, particularly clinicians who feel that burdensome business and regulatory requirements surrounding mhealth are causing undo stress and dissatisfaction.

Then there is the question of adoption and sustainability for mhealth apps and wearables. Who is most likely to use these tools? How can healthcare providers incentivize patients (especially those managing chronic diseases or part of the emergent risk population) to use them on a regular basis? Will patient demographics such as baby boomers or seniors be as open and willing to use them as millennials are?

Despite the roadblocks and challenges that mhealth apps and wearables present, few people disagree that these tools have a tremendous potential to alter the face of individual and population health outcomes to help better personalize medicine, reduce readmissions, improve outcomes, and drive comparative effectiveness research.

Join us this Friday at 11 a.m. CST for an in-depth chat on healthcare apps and wearables on the #HITsm tweet.

RightPatient® Named Top 40 Innovative Company by Technology Association of Georgia

March 18, 2015/3695 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG /by John Trader

RightPatient® was named a Top 40 Innovative Technology Company by the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG).

We are delighted to report that RightPatient® was named one of the Top 40 Innovative Technology Company by the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG). TAG’s Top 40 awards recognize Geogria-based companies for not only their innovation, but also their financial impact and efforts at spreading awareness of Georgia’s technology initiatives throughout the U.S. and globally. The best of the best in Georgia’s technology community, this award is an important benchmark of our innovative and creative technology development to address some of the core patient identification, patient engagement, personalized healthcare, and healthcare intelligence platform needs of the healthcare industry and to reduce costs and liability, improve quality of care, monitor population health, and enhance the patient experience. A link to the news release announcing the award can be found here.

We are inching closer to the release of our healthcare informatics platform that unifies big data and clinical knowledge in healthcare in an unprecedented way to drive personalized health, decision support, and predictive analytics. Built as a global healthcare ecosystem, this smart health platform aggregates data and uses deep learning and predictive analytics to personalize medicine, reduce readmissions, improve outcomes, and drive comparative effectiveness research.

Thank you to TAG for bestowing this award to us, and congratulations to the entire RightPatient® team for their dedication and hard work on all of our solutions!

Terrebonne General Medical Center Reaps Benefits of Iris Biometrics for Patient Identification

March 16, 2015/4127 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG /by John Trader

More hospitals are reaping the benefits of using iris biometrics for patient identification to help:

— eliminate duplicate medical records

— reduce preventable medical errors

— prevent medical identity theft and fraud at the point of service

— raise patient safety levels

Terrebonne General Medical Center recently implemented the RightPatient® iris biometric patient identification system.

Terrebonne General Medical Center in Houma, LA. is no exception. After a seamless integration of our RightPatient® biometric patient identification solution into Terrebonne’s McKesson EHR system at their main hospital late last year, the hospital has quickly acclimated the technology as a key piece of their strategy to raise patient safety levels, and reduce preventable medical errors that could result from patient misidentification. Terrebonne’s patients have warmly embraced the biometric patient identification solution with over 99% opting into the RightPatient® system, citing its importance to protect their medical identity and prevent unnecessary medical errors along with it’s no-touch, hygienic nature as a key feature for using the technology. Read more

New Podcast: Patient Engagement Part II with Dr. Neal Kaufman from DPS Health

March 9, 2015/3701 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG /by John Trader

Dr. Neal Kaufman from DPS Health was our podcast guest to discuss advancements and the impact of patient engagement in healthcare.

Since the topic of patient engagement continues to be a major focus and a topic of burgeoning interest in healthcare to achieve the “triple aim” of – lowering costs, improving the patient experience of care, and improving the health of populations – we decided to schedule a new podcast on the topic as a follow up to our recent discussion with Brad Tritle. A link to our podcast with Brad can be found here. Effective patient engagement is evolving in healthcare, and it’s important to keep our fingers on the pulse of what is working, what isn’t, and how the healthcare industry can improve it’s approach.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Neal Kaufman from DPS Health about a wide range of topics covering patient engagement including: Read more

On The Fence About Using Healthcare Apps and Wearables? This May Change Your Mind.

March 2, 2015/3692 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG /by John Trader

The following post was submitted by Jeremy Floyd, Director of Sales with RightPatient®

If you are still on the fence about using healthcare apps and/or wearables to better manage individual health or if it’s a brand new concept that’s peaked your curiosity but you want to know more, recent survey results may nudge you closer to adoption. Reported by mobihealth news, the survey polled 1,1015 American adults asking if they were interested in using a mobile app to manage their health. Two-thirds of survey participants responded “yes.” Two-thirds! The research report linked to the survey reported that (no surprise) millennials were more than twice as likely to show interest in using a mobile app for personalized health management compared to adults 66 and older.

Recent survey results indicate that more American adults are open and willing to the use of healthcare apps and wearables to more effectively manage personal health.

The survey went on to report that survey participants were most interested in tracking :

Diet and nutrition (47%)
Medication reminders (46%)
Symptom tracking (45%)
Physical activity tracking (44%)

The overriding point that the survey illuminates is that the era of using healthcare apps and wearables for personalized health management is upon us. No longer just shiny new tools that offer basic functionalities only used by the elite, healthcare apps and wearables are becoming vital tools that encite behaviorial shifts needed to more effectively and proactively manage our day-to-day health regimens. Couple this with the fact that mobile is the fastest-growing sector of the digital health market, and the new personal health management paradigm isn’t hard to picture.

Just a few short years ago, the birth of healthcare apps and wearables brought us clunky, rather inefficient tools that focused mostly on data reporting and wellness metrics. However, as the market evolved, the utility and connectivity of these tools matured, and more solutions were built that began to not just report data, but analyzed, shared, and extracted wisdom from it too. Apps and wearables went from “cool” to “essential” for effective health monitoring and data that produces actionable results to improve outcomes. And it seems like, it virtually happened overnight.

It could also perhaps be argued that the psychology of using of healthcare apps and wearables is as critical to the function of the tool itself. As notorious creatures of habit, our society tends to cling to tried and tested methods that have proven to be effective. Few are willing to take a leap of faith and venture into new territory that could otherwise disrupt the status quo, especially when it comes to a topic as sensitive as healthcare. Your health, is after all, your life. But what we are beginning to see as more of these healthcare apps and wearables prove their worth is a shift change in a willingness to try, backed by more physicians, healthcare providers, and peers who stand behind these tools as a necessary and essential part of patient activation in the spirit of improved patient engagement to improve outcomes. More patients are starting to look around and accept that the smartphone and digital health tools just can’t be ignored any longer and must be incorporated into their regimens throughout the patient journey. Now, it becomes a question of choosing which tools (or combination of tools) will be the most effective, based on the unique needs of each patient.

Embrace these new tools. Relish their portability. Talk to your doctor. Discuss them with your family and peers. But above all, give them a chance to make a difference.

Jeremy Floyd is Director of Sales with RightPatient®. With over 5 years of experience in providing patient safety and patient engagement technical solutions to the healthcare industry, Jeremy speaks around the country to healthcare professionals on the future of health empowerment.