The amount of technology we have available to us in the world today is astounding. Wherever we go it’s around us, with us, and in many cases, watching us. This is especially true in healthcare. Technology has not only made things safer and more efficient, but has changed the way providers deliver care to their patients.
Patients have the ability to access their health record, pay bills, schedule appointments, and message their physician all from their smart phone or computer. Telehealth has also become increasingly popular, and could have a significant impact on rural areas with limited options for access to care. In addition to the technology available to consumers, most healthcare organizations have adopted the use of electronic health record and continue to find uses to improve patient care.
So with all of this available to us today, what exists to track medical devices such as hip and knee implants? Surely with all of the technology that’s available in the healthcare industry, they would have been tracking a device that’s been implanted in my body, right? The unfortunate answer is, no. While the FDA, CMS and the ONC have done some noticeable work to improve the process and requirements around storing the UDI (Unique Device Identifier) at the patient level, there’s still nothing that exists to alert patients as to when they have a device with a potential adverse effect, or even worse, a recall. Until now…
Our company, TrackMy Solutions, has released the first consumer facing mobile and web app that enables a patient to store this information, and be alerted in the event of a possible recall. The goal of our app, TrackMy Implants, is aimed at empowering patients to take action when it comes to their health. While we are early in our journey, we feel our mission to engage, education, involve, and inform our patients is an important one. We hope to continue to improve on what we have built thus far with our first application, and deliver additional functionality and features to our users. If you or a loved one has an implantable medical device, please take a look at our application in both the app store and google play store to see if this is right for you.
Written By: Ian Laster
April 30th, 2018
