Avera Releases Sioux Falls’ First Health Care App for Mobile Devices
SIOUX FALLS (Aug 2, 2012) – Avera Health has introduced the Sioux Falls area’s first mobile health care app for smart phones and mobile devices, “Avera Health To Go.”
Avera Health To Go is free, and offers new ways for patients to manage and track their own personal health information. While not a substitute for medical consults or appropriate medical care, the app is a tool which allows patients to be a more active partner in their health care.
“Health care of the future will be more preventative in nature, and will harness the latest technology. We’re proud to be taking this innovative step,” said Michelle Lavallee, senior vice president of innovation and chief marketing officer at Avera McKennan Hospital & University Health Center.
It's estimated that 1.4 billion smart phones will be in use by 2015 and 500 million will have a health-related application loaded on them. Some 5 billion apps were downloaded in 2012, and that’s expected to increase to 21 billion by 2013. “There are nearly 6,000 medical apps available for download today, and that number will only grow. Avera wanted to offer a health app from a locally known and trusted source,” Lavallee added.
Avera Health To Go offers health trackers to track and share personal health information such as blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, mood, weight, pregnancy, migraines, and medications. Patients can keep this information for their own reference, or easily share it. This information stays completely confidential and goes no further than the phone itself, unless the phone user chooses to share it electronically.
Consumers can use the app to:
- Gain immediate first aid information
- Get the latest Avera news and health tips, including the Avera Story Center blog
- Read current health information from the Mayo Clinic, including hundreds of consumer-friendly articles about diseases, conditions and treatments
- Find the nearest Avera physician in South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and North Dakota —including more than 560 Avera Medical Group physicians and specialists with tools that include a physician finder, GPS “wayfinding” to clinics, and a click-to-call contact directory
- Store insurance information and a scanned image of insurance card(s)
- ED and urgent care wait times (coming soon)
The app can be downloaded completely free of charge. Owners of mobile devices can go to the Apple or Android apps store on their device, and find Avera Health To Go in the alphabetical listing. As an added incentive to download the app, Avera is offering a chance to win a free iPad. Simply download the app to access the iPad drawing entry form.
Avera partnered with Axial Exchange, to create an app specifically tailored for Avera. Axial Exchange has created apps for a number of leading hospitals in the nation. “Avera wanted to partner with a company with the experience and expertise to create a user-friendly app with trusted, accurate health information that health consumers need and want,” Lavallee said. The app was developed with local information and expertise. For example, the app’s myMood tracker was created with insight from Avera psychiatrist Dr. Matthew Stanley.
“Through Avera Health To Go, Avera is providing one more way that patients and health care consumers can access the resources of Avera, along with other trusted points of contact including our website, 24-hour Medical Call Service and Ask-A-Nurse, and of course our network of clinics and hospitals,” Lavallee said.
To learn more, go to www.avera.org/mobile-app For specific questions about downloading the app, please email webmaster@avera.org
