The first two of a number of applications for providing vets with better care will soon be launching.
The Veterans Affairs Department (VA) has now announced their intentions to launch the first two of what will one day be several mhealth apps for smartphones and tablets that are designed to offer veterans faster and easier access to healthcare data.
These two mobile apps will be launched at some point early in the fall, followed later on by others.
Among the two, the first mhealth app is called Summary of Care. The second will be called Blue Button. These two applications each offer electronic health record access, but Blue Button gives users the ability to create a PDF file so that health care providers outside of the VA can view them. Both of the apps – which are already available through My HealtheVet for desktop and laptop computers – have been receiving considerable applause from beta testers.
These two mhealth apps received the most positive response from those who beta tested the total of 8 applications.
According to the Connected Health co-director from the Veterans Health Administration, Neil Evans, “We know that, at least in our pilot population, veterans wanted to have access on their mobile devices or use these applications to see their electronic health records.” He went on to say that they have used their experience in order to learn that patients using My HealtheVet appreciate being able to view their own personal health data.
He also said that they have “also learned that they value it on mobile device through our family caregiver pilot, so it seemed a logical next step to deliver that experience nationally to veterans.” To start, the first two applications will be available in the impending app store from the VA, which is also expected to be ready this fall. The project is worth an estimated $9.3 million and was initially contracted back in 2012.
These mhealth apps will be available for devices running on a number of different operating systems, including Android, iOS, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile. Several more of the applications will become available over the next year or so.
