NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Southcoast Hospitals Group today launched an exciting new free application for the iPhone^®, called Southcoast MyHealth, that helps patients and their families keep track of their medications, find a physician and stay connected with news and events at Southcoast. The app is one of the most comprehensive mobile applications dedicated to patient safety offered by any hospital in New England or the U.S.

            The Southcoast MyHealth app, which is available immediately for download from the App Store℠, can be installed on any generation iPhone or iPod touch^®.

“One of the most critical National Patient Safety goals — and one of the greatest challenges for patients — is keeping track of their medications and having them readily available when you see a physician,” said Keith A. Hovan, President of Southcoast Health System and President & CEO of Southcoast Hospitals Group. “We realize that many people not only take care of themselves, but also look after the health care needs of their family members. With Southcoast’s new iPhone app, people will always have an up-to-date list of medications for everyone who is important to them and have it right at their fingertips when they need it most — when they are with their doctor or at the hospital.”

The concept for the app was developed in-house by Southcoast’s award-winning Marketing & Public Relations team in partnership with mediumstudio, a New Bedford-based design firm, and New Bedford developer Justin Brodeur.

“You can think of the MyHealth app from Southcoast Hospitals as your personal health assistant,” said Jim Rattray, Vice President of Marketing & Public Affairs at Southcoast Health System, who led the team that conceived and developed the app. 

“We are living in a world where on-the-go connectivity, especially through mobile devices like smartphones, is becoming expected and, in many cases, the preferred way to keep up with news and information,” he said.

The idea for the app was something the Southcoast team had been considering for almost two years, Rattray said. Actual development of the Southcoast MyHealth app took more than a year.

“We looked at what types of problems we could solve using an app on a mobile device that is always in someone’s pocket or purse,” Rattray said. “We settled on an app that stores medication information because medication reconciliation is an important patient safety issue and something that would definitely help our patients and their families.”

Local health care at the touch of your finger

In addition to keeping track of medications for multiple people, the Southcoast MyHealth app provides a local link to the region’s primary health care provider. The app can also assist people in finding a physician, keeping current with news from Southcoast, sending emails to patients and providing feedback to Southcoast. It also features a handy phone directory for the most frequently called numbers, which allows the user to quickly dial by just touching the number.

“Developing an application for a mobile device like the iPhone poses a number of design and technical challenges that required a great deal of thought, consideration and experimentation,” said Keri Cox, Director of Communications of mediumstudio. This was the first mobile application mediumstudio has been involved in developing.

“Working with Southcoast Hospitals was a great partnership because they brought a terrific idea that solves a problem that so many of us have — how to keep track of the many medications that our family members must take on a daily basis,” Cox said. “The challenge was to make an app that is both easy and useful — something you’ll want to keep on your iPhone and use regularly. I think we accomplished that!”

The writing of the code that drives the app was written and developed by Justin Brodeur, who is also based in New Bedford and has worked on a number of Internet-related projects for local businesses and non-profit organizations.

“Developing an app for the iPhone was a terrific experience,” Brodeur said. “It allowed us to really dig into how people think about medication management, what information is absolutely essential and how to make it easy to use. We added some nice touches — like the ability to take pictures of your family members — so that users could personalize the experience.

“Another great feature is the app’s News tab, which allows you to follow Southcoast’s news releases and social media channels, such as Twitter and YouTube, all in one location. It makes keeping up with all the Southcoast news a snap.”

Rattray praised Cox, Brodeur and mediumstudio as “exceptional team members who really brought some creative thinking and problem-solving to this project” and thanked the dozens of beta testers who helped debug the app prior to its official launch. Southcoast also worked with another local business, Franchise Studios, to develop promotional and tutorial videos for the app.

“We were thrilled that this entire project was developed using local talent from the South Coast region,” Rattray said. “All of our partners live and work in our communities and join us in our commitment to improve the health of our communities.”

The iPhone platform was chosen because “it has the best infrastructure for developing, promoting and using apps,” Rattray said. Development is also underway for a version of the app for mobile devices that run Google’s Android operating system.

“With an app, we’re really never done,” Rattray said. “We have some great ideas for new features for the future and we want to get feedback from our users to see what they like and what suggestions they have for how we can improve the app in version 2.0.”

More information about the app, including a link to download it from iTunes, can be found at www.southcoast.org/myhealthapp/.