{"id":874,"date":"2018-04-03T15:22:25","date_gmt":"2018-04-03T15:22:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dev-design-lab.pantheonsite.io\/?p=874"},"modified":"2018-05-02T17:32:47","modified_gmt":"2018-05-02T17:32:47","slug":"studio-session-with-john-torous-engagement-as-1-barrier-to-health-apps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/3lectrik.com\/designlab\/studio-session-with-john-torous-engagement-as-1-barrier-to-health-apps\/","title":{"rendered":"Studio Session with John Torous – Engagement as #1 Barrier to Health Apps"},"content":{"rendered":"

Design Lab Studio Session: Engagement as #1 Barrier for Health Apps: The Urgent Need for Collaborative Solution<\/strong><\/p>\n

John Torous, Harvard Medical School<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s been 10 years since the iPhone was first introduced and the app ecosystem has grown tremendously. Mobile phones serve as a digital platform that is\u00a0rich with advances in many industries, but healthcare seems to fall short. In a recent discussion at the Design Lab, John Torous, co-director of the Digital Psychiatry program at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a Harvard Medical School affiliated teaching hospital, examined this problem. \u201cWe have these really fancy learning machines that operate on algorithms and sensors, but if they\u2019re not being used it doesn\u2019t matter much,\u201d said Torous.<\/p>\n

A recent academic study asked primary care patients, \u201cAre you interested in using apps for your healthcare?\u201d 54\u00a0percent said yes for issues related to nutrition, 53\u00a0percent said yes\u00a0for issues related to diseases and 25\u00a0percent said yes for issues related to mental health. Torous explained that while it appears that many primary care patients\u00a0are interested in using apps for healthcare, there isn’t much movement in this direction. Torous aims to transfer and sustain the same enthusiasm for\u00a0PokemonGo<\/em>, which\u00a0was a mega successful gaming app, toward health care apps.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Torous stated\u00a0that there is a tremendous “engagement gap” that needs to be addressed with\u00a0healthcare apps. He pointed out that\u00a0PTSDcoach<\/em>\u00a0is a\u00a0popular healthcare app that\u00a0helps patients manage their own recovery\u00a0and has been downloaded over 100,000 times, but\u00a0only about 15,000 people use it.<\/p>\n

Torous theorizes that integrating apps into everyday use \u00a0is no simple feat because\u00a0it involves many other issues including\u00a0the security of personal information and the dynamic nature of the app ecosystem itself. \u00a0As sophisticated the problem may be, Torous suggests a simple approach to discover solutions. \u201cHow can we get some simple information from users, share it and get feedback. We don\u2019t have to predict everything right away.\u201d Although digital engagement in healthcare may be small, Torous also suggests there may be a solution in engaging\u00a0“superusers.” A superuser is a network account with privilege levels far beyond those of most user accounts. He says let’s start there, we can learn from them.<\/p>\n

Bio
\n<\/strong>John Torous is a board-certified psychiatrist with a background in electrical engineering and computer sciences. He completed medical school at UCSD,\u00a0residency at Harvard, and is currently a fellow in clinical informatics at Harvard Medical School. His research is at the intersection of mental health and technology\u00a0with a focus on smartphone apps and wearable sensors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Design Lab Studio Session: Engagement as #1 Barrier for Health Apps: The Urgent Need for Collaborative Solution John Torous, Harvard Medical School It\u2019s been 10 years since the iPhone was first introduced and the app ecosystem has grown tremendously. Mobile phones serve as a digital platform that is\u00a0rich with advances in many industries, but healthcare…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3435,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,9,3,28],"tags":[],"post_series":[],"class_list":["post-874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-design-lab-events","category-healthcare","category-news","category-studio-sessions","entry","has-media"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/3lectrik.com\/designlab\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/John-Touros.jpg?fit=601%2C585&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/3lectrik.com\/designlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/3lectrik.com\/designlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/3lectrik.com\/designlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3lectrik.com\/designlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3lectrik.com\/designlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=874"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/3lectrik.com\/designlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":876,"href":"https:\/\/3lectrik.com\/designlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874\/revisions\/876"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3lectrik.com\/designlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/3lectrik.com\/designlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3lectrik.com\/designlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3lectrik.com\/designlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874"},{"taxonomy":"post_series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3lectrik.com\/designlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_series?post=874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}