Diversinet targets health market
Information management must be made easy
As increasing smartphone and tablet use lets us exchange more and more personal information, the mobile health care field is undergoing an unprecedented pace of innovation.
New ways to let the patient be the manager of his or her own personal health information, sharing it with caregivers, service providers and payers when needed, are coming to market with increasing regularity.
Yet all those devices and all those innovations pose serious compatibility challenges, and the fact that the health-care industry itself has data system fragmentation doesn’t help.
So a truly effective and sustainable mobile health care ecosystem needs a common framework, one that also recognizes the reality that patients see many different health care providers over a lifetime.
It must be easy for people to manage their data anywhere, anytime and to enter information that’s needed by multiple providers and caregivers with any device that’s handy.
“It’s very important,” says Hussam Mahgoub, senior vice-president, corporate development & operations at Diversinet, a Canadian mobile health solutions company.
“Engaging patients and consumers in health and health care is crucial,” adds Mahgoub.
“Hospitals and providers are looking at new ways to connect with the patient, and they can use smart mobile communications as a meaningful channel.”
He sees effectively connecting patients and health care practitioners as not just a way to improve health and health care, but to tackle skyrocketing health-care costs, as well.
Diversinet has just introduced what it calls the mobiHealth Wallet to help patients easily and securely enter, manage and share their health information.
Using the Web or almost any mobile device, people set their personal profiles with special preferences like language and method of communication, like voice calls, e-mail or text messages.
Family health histories, and information from advocacy groups, can be gathered and shared as they see fit, too.
If needed, the mobile tools help patients follow care and exercise programs, get updated lab tests, or remind them of prescription cycles.
Of course, security and privacy are a must with health care information, so multi-factor authentication is one of several advanced features embedded in Diversinet’s platform, he says. To safeguard patient information, security measures also include patented encryption techniques, remote data wipe and more.
Mahgoub describes a year and a half process to ensure that product encryption would pass crucial validation testing at third-party laboratories, with work approved by both U.S. and Canadian government agencies.
The company has now been given a high level FIPS 140-2-grade rating, adhering to stringent standards that exceed other health care privacy requirements and it has set up a Canadian distribution network and a U.S. subsidiary.