iTriage is just the latest in smartphone apps geared to help us live healthier.
The popular medical app iTriage is giving health technology an overhaul, adding an enhanced symptom checker that allows users to check multiple symptoms in one search.
With more than 50 million sessions launched on the app in the last year, the company sought to create a more useful system at the suggestion of its users.
“iTriage listens closely to the needs and wants of its users,” said Wayne Guerra, a former emergency room doctor who is the chief medical officer and co-founder of iTriage. “We didn’t just want to deliver the tool; we wanted to make it smarter and more convenient than anything our users had experienced.”
Once a user inputs a main symptom, the new system utilizes medical databases to inform the user of potential causes or conditions, as well as options for further medical assistance. Before the launch, users could only input one symptom, whereas now the symptom checker allows consumers to input a primary symptom, along with their age, gender and up to two associated symptoms. If the search results yield an immediate medical emergency, an alert will suggest that the user view possible medical conditions, find a geo-located emergency room or call 911.
iTriage’s free apps and website are among the most highly rated medical apps available in Apple’s App Store. The booming health information technology market is expected to grow to more than $50 billion by 2017.
“If consumers are part of the equation to fixing the health care issues in this country, we need to arm them with the information and access to help them make better health care decisions,” Guerra said.
Guerra founded Healthagen – the New York-based company responsible for developing iTriage – along with fellow emergency room physician Peter Hudson in 2008. Insurance giant Aetna purchased the company in 2011.
