An example of an app that Novarus Healthcare previously developed.
Wake Forest Innovations, the commercialization arm of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, and Charlotte, North Carolina-based Novarus Healthcare signed a collaboration agreement to develop mobile apps. The partnership also includes a deal to collaborate on and commercialize the apps created.
As it is still early in the partnership, no apps have been finalized for production, but Wake Forest Innovations Executive Director of Commercialization Michael Batalia shared a few ideas with MobiHealthNews.
The first app is based off a new tool that reduced the amount of time a patient, who has broken bones or shown more complex musculosceletal indications, has to stay in the emergency department. The tool utilizes a set of checklists tested in a trial that Wake Forest Assistant Professor of Orthopedics Kamran Hamid published in a paper.
"He did that all on paper," Batalia said. "It's a bit cumbersome, people have lots of papers in their pocket. It doesn't allow for video and other advanced images that could be presented on a mobile platform, so we're moving that tool to the mobile platform. It'll make it easier for physicians to access and easier to update different features as it evolves."
The second app Batalia mentioned is a social network that helps friends and family of a patient know how to adequately support a patient after he or she leaves the hospital.
"When the patient comes through the medical center, they're here for some period of time and then they eventually move back home," Batalia said. "There are a lot of logistics that go into the help that friends, family and congregation want to give them so we are in the process of evaluating an app development that would center on providing that kind of community."
Batalia also said his team was interested in making an app to benefit Wake Forest's Sticht Center on Aging that would help patients with their memory or with facilitating a patient's access in their community.
Batalia's team plans to complete a couple of apps every 90 to 120 days depending on the level of complexity of the apps. Batalia also predicts that once some app templates have been made, it'll be an easier process.
"There are going to be the more sophisticated applications that have more social networking interfaces and database interfaces and those are probably going to take more time," Batalia said. "So it'll be a blend of time horizons for any particular project. Then of course we'll need time and effort on revisions because people want to have updated versions and refinements periodically, so we're thinking through the prospect of servicing apps that have been out for awhile."
Eventually Batalia's team aims to develop apps for medical records not just for Wake Forest, but other universities too.
