A broad trend in technology and health: Taking data from patients, wherever they are, and getting it to doctors and nurses, wherever they are. As we’ve noted before, lots of big tech companies like Intel, Google and IBM are trying to figure out how to gather data from patients when they’re at home, so that doctors and nurses can intervene to reduce the risk of hospitalizations and complications. At the same time, the companies that make smart phones are trying to figure out how to make patient data mobile for doctors and nurses. That push is perhaps inevitable, given the growth of smart phones, the tech industry’s push into health care and doctors’ and nurses’ longstanding use of Palms and other PDAs as medical reference tools. A story in this morning’s WSJ has a few examples of medical

smart-phone apps: Stanford Hospital is working with Apple and the health IT shop Epic to test software that lets doctors access patient charts on the iPhone. The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center recently handed out BlackBerrys to doctors and nurses in a few units. Besides using the devices to communicate with each other, the staff will also be trying out software for the devices, including a program that sends EKG images and patient data from hospital-bound ambulances to the BlackBerry, to give the hospital staff advance knowledge of who is coming in the door. More than 100 hospitals are using an app that lets obstetricians monitor maternal and fetal data remotely on their iPhones, via a special server. Image via A.D.A.M.

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Mobile Medicine: An iPhone for Every Doctor?