Apps and Students

David Bressler -

It's Monday, so me and the kiddos will be practicing coding later. On the way to school, the conversation turned to this afternoon's practice and it finally clicked for Evie:

Wait, I can make apps? You mean, like the apps that run on my iPad?

Yeah! I could see the gears working in her brain. The questions started coming, and as is typical, she was working things out linearly through this line of questioning.

It's a fun way to start the day and part of the gift of being able to walk them to school

WWDC

With WWDC approaching, Steve Troughton-Smith, a popular Apple developer posted a question on Twitter:

With just one month left before WWDC, show off what you've been working on to share a little inspiration.

The replies have been outstanding.

There's an app I'm anxiously awaiting for stock tracking built by a designer at Twitter. It looks gorgeous and I've been following his development progress with envy. It's called Stocketa.

Mostly, I loved seeing the humility of people sharing a little of their stories. The little bits that they were hoping to finish before WWDC. The way they're following their curiousity to learn something, and maybe create something others can use.

Here's a person who's combining their love of space with an opporunity to learn to code:

And another who's scratching her own itch, a good habit to build:

‎on thyme
use on thyme to keep track of your homework from your phone. created by an a level student, on thyme is completely free. organise your tasks by subject and teacher in an elegant, plant themed app. key features:- add photos to tasks- get reminders the day before a task is due- email your teachers…
App StoreGreys Mead Ltd

Finally for non-health related apps, for budding chemists:

‎Chemy
An App for chemists, made by chemist. Great for both chemistry education, and lab research. Shows periodic table in a clear way to help view the information efficiently.Compare atomic weight, electronegativity, electron affinity, ionization energy, radius, and isotopes of elements. Format chemi…
App StoreZhijin Chen

What caught my attention though were the number of health related apps. I've long thought that Apple's use of FHIR for health data is such a huge opportunity:

I talk about Apple Pay and Apple Health a lot. Apple Health is a few years behind the Apple Pay roll-out. And, considering that Apple Health uses FHIR, I like to point out that Axway has a solution to add value… and we can assume that Apple Health will follow the trajectory of Apple Pay — meaning lots of countries and lots of care providers over the next few years. Don’t look at today… look at the trajectory to define the opportunity. (November 21, 2019)

So here's a list of apps to check out that I pulled from the thread.

‎Medical ID Record
Your Medical ID Record is a useful reference in an emergency or when visiting a healthcare professional. It could save your life one day! Enter Personal Data, Medical Conditions, Allergies & Reactions, Medications, and Emergency Contacts. Use Other Notes for any other kind of information you want t…
App StoreGeoff Hackworth
‎CardioBot - Heart Rate Monitor
​Your Apple Watch measures your heart rate every 4 minutes during the day. With CardioBot, you can easily understand the data captured by the Apple Watch so you can improve your lifestyle and discover notable patterns. CardioBot uses the studies provided by the American Heart Association to build s…
App StoreMajid Jabrayilov
Heart Reports
Generate detailed PDF reports from your health data stored in iOS Health to share with your doctor
Cori - Better diabetes
The app that helps you to take control of your diabetes. No instruction manual. Join the beta. Available for iPhone and iPad.
Chubby Apps
BP Bot
BP Bot makes keeping track of your blood pressure a snap. Uncover patterns and correlations in your blood pressure that only a robot could find!
‎Child Meds
Child Medication Tracker - a helpful utility that gives you a reliable record of when you give your child Paracetamol & Ibuprofen medication. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I can be complicated keeping track of…
App StoreCode Summary Ltd

I can't imagine going to years and years of school for the benefit of working through the insurance companies to help people. Maybe instead of medical school you can learn to code instead, and help people faster?

Seriously though. Anyone who's worked with me over the last six years or so knows how I feel about Electronic Health Record innovation. I still talk about being asked to leave a large healthcare system in Texas where I was told in no uncertain terms that I "missed the boat on mobile" because they "solved mobile by converting all their web pages to responsive formats".

It's not just the apps, it's the jobs we're hiring technology to do for us related to keeping us healthy. As the world changes around us, the healthcare companies whose doctors we count on, can't figure out the most simple of ways to help people stay healthy. It's beyond my understanding how they can be so negligent.

The above five applications are by no means a comprehensive list. I haven't even tried them all (thankfully, I don't have diabetes or heart issues). They are, however, gorgeous apps that are well communicated to their audiences and put hospital IT solutions to shame.