Want to manage your diabetes? There's an app for that

DURING the first annual Connected Health Symposium at the University of Pennsylvania in April, faculty members and entrepreneurs spent a day showcasing new mobile tools that patients can use to communicate with their physicians, chart their progress reaching health goals and interact with other people who are facing similar medical challenges. This is the essence of the connected health movement -- a groundswell of mobile apps, wireless devices, and websites designed to bring patients together with the people who want to keep them healthy. The symposium ended with a provocative question posed by Ralph Muller, CEO of the University of Pennsylvania Health System: "But do consumers want to be so connected?"

Entrepreneurs are betting the answer to that question will be "absolutely." But they're facing a host of challenges: The U.S. Food & Drug Administration is preparing to release guidelines for mobile medical apps that could require some companies to seek the agency's approval for their products before can go to market. Even if firms clear those regulatory hurdles, designing the gizmos so they appeal to tech-averse types, such as the elderly, will be far from straight forward. "I do think the big challenge, once the technology has been created and approved, is going to be focusing on behavior change in high-risk populations," notes Kevin Volpp, Wharton professor of health care management, who also spoke at the symposium. As for whether patients want to be so connected, Volpp says, "Some do and some don't, and that's part of the challenge."

While the earliest connected-health efforts centered on maintaining wellness – with companies such as Fitbit offering a variety of apps and wireless devices people can use to track exercise goals and the like -- more recent innovations are aimed at specific patient groups. In particular, they target people with chronic diseases that require daily vigilance, such as heart failure, diabetes and obesity.

For example, Boston-based Wellframe used technology developed at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to create what co-founder and CEO Jacob Sattelmair refers to as a "digital concierge for patients with chronic illness--something that gives them guidance to stay on track." Sattelmair, who spoke at Penn's symposium, says the company, founded in 2012, is pilot testing its first app on patients who are recovering from heart attacks.

Generally, heart patients are expected to attend rehab sessions several times a week, where they're taught exercises to strengthen theirNike Shox Current 807