Mayo Clinic debuted Monday its second iPhone/iTouch application, the hospital’s latest effort to extend its brand into mobile technology.
Mayo Clinic Symptom Checker, which can be downloaded free on iTunes, allows patients to find quick medical advice to 40 symptoms. For instance, the app advises patients to seek a doctor if they experience coughing for more than 10 days “or is accompanied by difficulty breathing, difficulty swallowing, bloody phlegm, wheezing, stiff neck, or fever.”
Last month, Mayo launched mRemedy, a collaboration with DoApps Inc. in Rochester, to develop and sell smart phone apps based on Mayo research. Its first app, Mayo Clinic Meditation, a program to teach people breathing and relaxation techniques, has already sold 900 apps in 24 countries.
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Judging from some early reviews, Symptom Checker is not exactly breakthrough technology. Nor is it meant to be.
The idea is to gently persuade patients to take greater control of their health through a popular device, a basic but necessary first step to “digital health care connectivity” where doctors, hospitals, and patients eventually communicate and share sophisticated medical information through laptops, PDAs, and smart phones, said Scott Danielson, a former UnitedHealth Group executive and founder of the consulting firm Healthy Heartland Inc.
Symptom Checker is also another way “to get Mayo packaged and delivered to people,” said Brian Nass, chair of Mayo’s Global Products and Services division. A patient who likes and uses the app would be a good candidate to make an appointment with a Mayo doctor, he said.
