An app a day . . .

An app may be able to keep you
out of the doctor's office.

Many people have heard the phrase: "An apple a day keeps the doctor away." But what happens when a smartphone app can do the same thing? As the FDA approves more health related apps for smartphones, health apps are becoming more popular.

The market for health apps has increased significantly as more people purchase smartphones and more apps are created. MedCity News discovered that within the last year, the market increased from $100 million to over $700 million annually. A Business Week article estimates that health apps will be used by 30 percent of smartphone users by 2015.

Harvard Medical identifies blood pressure, CPR, ICE (in case of emergency), and heart rate apps to be increasingly important. Not only do these apps help you stay healthy, but they also allow action to be taken if something does happen. The CPR app teaches you how to perform CPR on someone if needed, and the ICE app allows you to enter relevant health information about yourself and contact information so paramedics can find it if something happens to you.

A new app allows doctors to employ a mobile ultrasound.

One new app used by doctors is an ultrasound app that works when a small device is plugged into it (image of device to the right). An article from Business Week tells a story about how a doctor used this pocket-sized ultrasound when he responded to Joplin, MO after the tornado hit. He "used it to examine a pregnant woman who came to a temporary hospital complaining of stomach pain." The mobility of this item allows for convenience in emergency situations.

Maybe you think that you have no need for a health related app. You have no known health problem, so why should you care? Well, there is more to health than just health problems.  

Japanese programmers created an app to repel mosquitoes. 

One app I found particularly entertaining is called "Mosquito Buster". Japan Trends identifies an app that causes your phone to emit three levels of high frequency sounds in order to drive away mosquitoes, rodents, and (my personal favorite) children. That's right . . . children. As we get older we are said to lose our ability to hear the high pitched sound, so only children will be bothered and will stay away (perfect for the screaming children in the department store).

However, with the increasing creation of health related apps, the FDA has begun to regulate some medical apps as they would any other medical device. As people implement the use of smartphones in the place of regular equipment, they are becoming medical devices, so they must be examined in the same way.

So whether you want to keep track of your blood pressure, have a doctor give you an ultrasound with their smartphone, or just want to relax away from mosquitoes (or your/someone else's children) smartphone apps are increasing in the health field. What once was done with large devices can be done with a device that fits in the palm of your hand, making mobility and convenience a possibility for health.