The Mayo Clinic handed iPads with an app called “myCare” to patients scheduled for surgery and showed that its use significantly reduced postsurgical length of stay, the total cost of care, and the need for home health care or skilled nursing care at discharge.
A study of 150 patients was so successful that the software, developed initially as an external software program for testing, is now being rebuilt into the institution’s systems so that it has a home in clinicians’ workflow, Dr. David J. Cook said at the Health 2.0 fall conference.
Dr. Cook, chair of cardiovascular anesthesiology at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn., describes the app in detail in this video interview. The app provides patients a customized plan of care including what they can expect daily, just-in-time education, self-assessment tools, and more. Results are transmitted wirelessly to a dashboard, where clinicians can track a patient’s progress, facilitating earlier intervention when needed.
Other investigators at the Mayo Clinic developed a separate online and smartphone-based app to help with rehabilitation of patients hospitalized after a heart attack and stent placement. The app functioned as a self-monitoring system that allowed patients to enter vital signs and to access educational content about steps they could take to reduce their risk of another heart attack.
During a 90-day study, 20% of 25 patients using the app were rehospitalized or admitted to an emergency department, compared with 60% of 19 patients in a control group who received conventional cardiac rehabilitation care without the app. The investigators reported the data at the American College of Cardiology earlier this year.
“We hope a tool like this will help us extend the reach of cardiac rehabilitation to all heart patients, but in particular, it could help patients in rural and underserved populations who might not be able to attend cardiac rehabilitation sessions,” Dr. R. Jay Widmer said in a statement released by the Mayo Clinic.
These and dozens of other apps and technological tools are being developed and tested is a systematic fashion through the Mayo Clinic’s Center for Innovation. In the video, Dr. Cook also describes the Center’s activities and previews another innovative tool in development.
Dr. Cook reported having no financial disclosures.
On Twitter @sherryboschert