AMA latest in app market

The American Medical Association has developed an iPhone application that allows people to store essential health data.

The My Medications app can be downloaded for use on any Apple product using the version 4.0 operating system.

People can store medication information, emergency information, immunisations, allergies and contact details for their ‘healthcare team’. The app also allows people to email the information to others, such as their doctors or family members.

The AMA’s chair elect, Steven Stack, said the app was likely to improve patient care and reduce the risks involved when treating people with allergies.

“When a physician has access to a patient’s current medications, allergies and immunisations, the risk of medical errors and adverse reactions to medications decreases,” he said.

The AMA has a history of supporting IT initiatives, and recently ran a competition for innovative healthcare apps.

My Medications is its second entry into the mobile tool market. Demonstrating one of the key differences between the US and UK systems, its first app was designed to help physicians find the right code for billing.

The steady stream of health apps now coming onto the market does not seem to be driving interest in health in the way that earlier technologies did, however.

Instead, the Center for Studying Health System Change has said that the proportion of American adults seeking health information from sources other than their doctor is now falling.

Reporting on the latest in a series of regular surveys, the CSHCS said that the proportion of adults who had sought out health information had dropped to 50% in 2010, from 56% in 2007, as internet use stalled and print sources declined.

The internet was used by 31% of those looking for health information in 2007 and 33% in 2010, even though high-speed broadband access rose from 47% to 66% of households over the period.

Meanwhile, the use of print sources dropped by nearly half, to 18%, as a result of falling newspaper and magazine circulations and declining book sales.

The drop particularly affected older Americans, people with chronic conditions and people with lower-education levels, the 2010 Health Tracking Household Survey, found.

The survey is conducted with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and obtains information from 17,000 people chosen as a representative sample of the US population.

The survey has previously shown that better educated people are more likely to seek health information than less well educated people; and the 2010 study shows that the gap is growing.

People with a graduate education are more than twice as likely as those with no high school diploma to seek health information (67% compared to 33%). The gap is particularly wide when it comes to internet use; and, logically, might be expected to extend to expensive smartphone use.