Drchrono, a free iPad health care app for doctors, has become the first app of its kind to be included in a federal program that encourages medical professionals to use digital instead of physical record keeping. Medical practices that use drchrono to manage their patients can receive as much as $63,750 in federal funding.
Electronic Health Record (EHR) platforms that meet certain criteria can receive Meaningful Use certification from the federal Department of Health & Human Services. Practitioners who use certified apps can receive up to $44,000 as Medicare incentives, or up to $63,750 as Medicaid incentives.
The app began as a simple appointment reminder system for patients, but it has iterated steadily. It recently added support for billing through insurance providers, media integration for medical charts, speech-to-text transcription, and support for electronic prescriptions throughout the U.S. These features, combined with its clean, easy user interface, could significantly affect the way the health care industry operates.
We’ve been interested in the use of tablet computers in the health care space since before the iPad even had a name, and since then, we’ve seen steady improvement in the features and usability of medical apps. Drchrono’s certification is a great signal for companies developing this kind of software, not to mention for patients and doctors.
