Berita Buzz Indonesia

Oleh Haryo Adjie Nogo Seno


Di luar dugaan, kini jumlah aplikasi di Google Play telah mencapai 800 ribu. Suatu jumlah yang fantastis. Dari 800 ribu aplikasi tersebut, mayoritas adalah aplikasi gratisan. Bila dirunut dari kualitas, bercampur aduk lah antara aplikasi yang berkualitas tinggi dan aplikasi abal-abal. Tapi lepas dari itu, semua merupakan daya tarik orang untuk menggunakan Android.

Banyaknya aplikasi dengan beragam kegunaan membuat pengguna penasaran untuk mengunduh. Bila suka pasang dan jalankan, bila ternyata jelek maka langsung di uninstall, pertanyaanya apakah ‘budaya’ install dan uninstall ini bagus? Bagi Anda pengguna layanan paket internet berbasis kuota jawabannya jelas kurang bagus. Sekedar untuk melihat seperti apakah suatu aplikasi, Anda harus mengunduh dahulu. Aktivitas tersebut selain makan waktu juga menguras data internet Anda, belum lagi pengorbanan untuk waktu unduh yang terasa lama karena koneksi internet kurang bagus.

Nah, menghindari ‘budaya’ yang kurang efisien tadi, ada baiknya ada menjajal tips dari kami, yakni dengan menjalankan aplikasi App Surfer. Ini adalah aplikasi Android yang menyediakan jasa bagi Anda untuk mencoba menjalankan suatu aplikasi tanpa harus mengunduhnya. Lho kok bisa? Ya jelas bisa, karena aplikasi ini akan mencoba dari sisi website, selayaknya simulator aplikasi.

Selain bisa beraksi dalam wujud aplikasi, App Surfer juga bisa Anda jajal di halaman desktop PC atau Notebook (Red), yakni lewat http://www.appsurfer.com, dalam versi web ini malah banyak aplikasi yang bisa dicoba langsung dari browser. Simulator ini cukup lengkap, Anda bisa aktifkan GPS, mengubah bentuk layar tablet/smartphone, dan menjalankan moda akselerometer. Jadi buat Anda yang tertarik suatu aplikasi, tapi belum jelas benar seperti apa dalamannya, yuk jajal dulu via App Surfer.


1. Etalase aplikasi Android yang ada di Google Play, otomatis ada di App Surfer, termasuk aplikasi yang berbayar.


2. Dilengkapi keterangan dan spesifikasi dari aplikasi yang dimaksud.


3. Salah satu visual aplikasi yang ditampilkan di App Surfer.


4. Visual tampilan App Surfer dari halaman browser desktop PC.

Sumber : Selular

Bagi Anda pengguna Android, mungkin ada yang pernah melihat kemunculan kontak ganda, bahkan boleh jadi lebih dari ganda di dalam menu contact. Semisal ada dua nama yang sama, tapi berbeda nomer ponselnya, begitu juga sebaliknya. Hal tersebut terjadi bukan tanpa musabab, dari penelusuran itu bisa terjadi karena Anda menggunakan banyak akun untuk sinkronisasi. Yang sudah pasti ter-sinkronisasi adalah akun Gmail, dan biasanya dilanjutkan sinkronisasi akun Facebook. Semakin banyak Anda install aplikasi, boleh jadi persoalan multi kontak kian ruwet.

Sejujurnya tidak ada masalah yang terlalu mengganggu, hanya saja kalau ini berlangsung terus , lambat laun bisa bikin list menu contact jadi tidak enak dipandang, bahkan terkesan berantakan. Untuk mengatasi problem diatas tidak perlu pusing, tidak perlu Anda mengurutkan satu per satu dari daftar contact. Kini Anda bisa secara otomatis menggabungkan kontak ganda ke dalam satu kontak saja. Hal ini bisa dilakukan dengan jalan install aplikasi Merge+.

Merge+ adalah aplikasi yang tersedia gratis di Google Play. Cara penggunaan aplikasi ini sangat mudah alias bebas ribet. Dalam ujicoba, tidak sampai 3 menit seluruh kontak ganda di hape atau tablet Anda bisa tampil rapih. Aplikasi besutan Contacts Plus Team ini besarnya pun hanya 621KB. Mau coba? Yuk unduh Merge+, disini (Red)


1. Ilustrasi kontak ganda di dalam menu contact.


2. Setelah aplikasi terpasang, langsung jalankan fitur search for duplicates. Aplikasi akan menscan semua kontak dalam contact.


3. Kemudian Anda akan memperoleh informasi berapa kontak yang ganda.


4. Bila sudah ketemu kontak siapa aja yang ganda, kemudian Anda centang kontak kontak itu untuk dijadikan satu kemudian pilih menu merge di bawahnya.

Sumber : Selular

Salah satu keunggulan ponsel BlackBerry dibanding Android adalah adanya notifikasi berupa LED (lampu kedip) yang bisa digunakan untuk menandakan adanya miscall, SMS, atau message baru dari layanan chatting. Dengan adanya notifikasi dalam LED secara langsung memudahkan kita untuk melihat adanya ‘pesan’ baru dari jarak yang tidak terlalu dekat.

Tapi lewat kemajuan aplikasi, kini bisa lho efek LED dihadirkan di hape Android. Caranya tidak sulit dan bebas biaya alias gratis. Singkat cerita, yang digunakan adalah aplikasi NoLED, diunduh disini (Red), dan bisa Anda unduh di Google Play. Berikut langkah-langkah penggunaanya:


1. Sebelum menggunakan, pelajari dahulu slide presentasi yang dipaparkan.


2. Penggunaan aplikasi ini dapat menghemat performa baterai, pasalnya Anda tak perlu bolak balik mengaktifkan layar untuk sekedar melihat ada atau tidaknya SMS yang masuk.


3. Pilihan setting yang tersedia lumayan lengkap. Termasuk kombinasi dengan notifkasi suara dan getar.


4. Agar lebih menghemat baterai, NoLED dapat diatur berdasarkan time and sleep mode. Juga bisa dapat diatur interval dari kemunculan ikon notifikasinya.


5. Ukuran desain notifikasi yang muncul pada idle screen dapat diatur besarnya.


6. Inilah tampilan ikon notifikasi pada idle screen. Meski layar dalam kondisi off, tetap dapat menampilkan notifikasi SMS, misscall, atau WhatsApp yang masuk. Cukup tap ikon yang dimaksud, Anda akan dibawa meluncur ke menu/aplikasi.

Sumber : Selular

Saking gampangnya kita download aplikasi dan game di Google Play, secara langsung juga berdampak pada ‘kebersihan’ gadget. Buah dari aksi ‘gila’ download secara langsung biasanya terlihat dari kapasitas memori di storage. Ketambahan lagi, bila pengguna kurang disiplin menghapus aplikasi yang tidak perlu, maka dipastikan akan mengganggu kinerja smartphone atau tablet. Ujung-ujungnya nanti akan muncul ‘teguran’ dari sistem, seperti peringatan “Insufficient storage available”.

Kembali ke soal bersih-bersih storage, yang membuat penuh dan kotor storage bukan saja karena keberadaan aplikasi, tapi sisa-sisa dari file pendukung aplikasi kadang juga bisa bikin penuh memori. Jurus untuk mengatasinya banyak, ibarat ‘jeruk makan jeruk,’ di Google Play banyak tersedia aplikasi untuk membereskan urusan ini.

Memang ampuh dengan minta bantuan aplikasi, tapi apa jadinya bila kapasitas memori ponsel Anda telah penuh dan tak kuat lagi menarik aplikasi baru, mau install aplikasi apa pun tentu bakal repot. Bila ini kasus yang Anda hadapi, maka masih ada jalan kok. Anda bisa membersihkan sisa-sisa residu tanpa bantuan aplikasi. Mau tahu caranya? Tidak sulit dan nyatanya sangat praktis.


1. Untuk memulai bersih-bersih, silakan menuju Settings -> Storage. Disitu akan ada indikator memori internal dan eksternal, pilih yang kira-kira membuat memori penuh, Android sudah memisahkan berdasarkan jenis filenya.


2. Pilih menu Misc, sebab di menu iini berisi data-data yang bukan gambar, video, dan dokumen.


3. Silahkan centang dan hapus file-file yang sekiranya sudah Anda anggap sebagai sampah.

Sumber : Selular

Oleh Haryo Adjie Nogo Seno


Bagi Anda pengguna smartphone dan tablet Android, boleh jadi kerap melihat aktvitas yang tak dikehendaki, yaitu munculnya notifikasi update aplikasi pada layar. Padahal Anda tidak pernah ‘memerintahkan’ sistem untuk melakukan update aplikasi yang dimaksud. Bukan cuma satu dua yang ter-update, tapi bisa-bisa ada lima aplikasi yang ter-update sekaligus.

Secara prinsip, update suatu aplikasi memang hal yang positif, dengan update maka kinerja dan menu dari suatu aplikasi bisa meningkat. Tapi eh tetapi, yang namanya auto update bisa bikin pusing juga, sebab auto update aplikasi bisa mengganggu kenyamanan, semisal Anda sedang asyik-asyik browsing, maka selancar browsing bisa jadi lambat gara-gara munculnya update. Belum lagi, bila muncul notifikasi pada layar, bisa diibaratkan spam. Dan, lebih parahnya pulsa paket data Anda bisa terkuras banyak. Apalagi kalau yang ter-update koleksi game-game yang ukuran filenya besar, bisa tekor nantinya.

Nah, ada jalan kok untuk mematikan auto update, setidaknya ada pengaturan untuk benar-benar mematikan auto update aplikasi, atau hanya aktif saat hape Anda berada di jaringan WiFi. Pengaturannya ada di dalam menu setting aplikasi Google Play. Beberapa orang ada yang keliru untuk mematikan auto update ini. Ada yang mengira mematikan auto update masuk dari menu settings > about device > software update, ini adalah jalan yang keliru, sebab ini adalah jalur untuk auto update/upgrade versi software OS (operating system), seperti dari Android ICS ke Android Jelly Bean. Untuk lebih jelasnya simak tips berikut ini.


1. Jalur auto update settings > about device > software update. Ini bukan auto update aplikasi, melainkan auto update software OS


2. Yang benar, buka aplikasi Google Play > Settings


3. Pilih Auto Update Apps


4. Disini Anda bisa pilih untuk mematikan auto update secara total, atau tetap auto update selama di dalam jaringan WiFi. Saran kami gunakan opsi kedua

Sumber: Selular

Merdeka.com - Tak perlu kunci untuk membuka pintu. Di masa mendatang, smartphone pun bisa digunakan untuk membuka pintu mana saja yang Anda inginkan.

Seperti dilansir oleh Mashable (27/1), hal inilah yang akan diwujudkan oleh Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide. Mereka akan mengujicobakan kunci pintu menggunakan smartphone di Aloft Hotel, New York City atau Silicon Valley.

Dengan sebuah aplikasi mobile, nantinya pelanggan tidak perlu lagi takut ketinggalan atau kehilangan kunci kamar mereka ketika menginap di hotel. Cukup dengan aplikasi tersebut, kamar mereka bisa dibuka kapan saja.

"Ini akan jadi standar baru bagi seseorang yang akan menginap di hotel. Ini merupakan ide baru namun juga penuh perjudian," kata CEO Frits van Paasschen.

Teknologi ini memanfaatkan Bluetooth dan mampu bekerja di iPhone 4S ke atas atau Android minimal 4.3.

Nantinya Bluetooth dalam ponsel akan memanggil sensor di pintu dan mengaktifkan pengunci. Pengunci ini ditenagai oleh baterai sehingga bisa bekerja meskipun nantinya terjadi pemadaman listrik.

Sebelumnya, Apple pernah mendaftarkan teknologi serupa ke badan paten di 2010. Paten Apple tersebut berperan untuk menjadikan iPhone sebagai perangkat serba bisa termasuk untuk membuka pintu.

Sumber: Merdeka

Merdeka.com - Mungkin ada baiknya mengetahui seberapa 'kecanduan' diri Anda dengan perangkat mobile. Untuk itu diciptakanlah sebuah aplikasi mobile yang dapat memberitahukan data lengkapnya.

Sebuah aplikasi untuk mobile bernama Menthal diciptakan untuk membantu penggunanya dalam mengetahui serta mengukur tingkat 'kecanduan' smartphone atau perangkat lain sejenisnya.

Dkutip dari IBN Live (28/01), aplikasi yang dikembangkan oleh para peneliti dari University of Bonn di Jerman ini dapat membantu siapa saja untuk melihat berapa jam waktu yang mereka habiskan untuk mengakses gadgetnya dalam sehari.

"Menthal akan menyediakan data secara terperinci tentang waktu rata-rata yang digunakan oleh pengguna perangkat mobile dalam mengakses gadgetnya dalam sehari," jelas Alexander Markowetz, salah seorang peneliti.

Dalam sebuah uji coba dengan menggunakan aplikasi ini terhadap 50 siswa, ternyata rata-rata remaja lebih dari 80 kali mengaktifkan perangkat mobile mereka dalam sehari. [das]

Sumber: Merdeka

Sumber: Detik

image: salon.com

It is hard to remember when we didn’t have cell phones and electronic access to just about any good or service. Americans increasingly are using their mobile devices to access health information and use related applications (apps) in a variety of ways to address their health care needs.

Despite recent advances, uptake in mobile health (mHealth) is not quite as far along as we might have thought, according to a 2012 study of the status of mHealth by the Pew Internet Project. The project found the keys to greater mHealth advancement lie in technology and demographics.

Technology

Not surprisingly, there is a technological divide when it comes to mHealth. Pew researchers noted that 85 percent of U.S. adults own a cell phone, and slightly more than half of them own smartphones. It makes a difference.

Demographics

Demographics also make a difference when it comes to the ways Americans use their cellular technology to address their health care needs.

What Does It Mean?

One takeaway from the last election cycle was that successful uptake depends on using the right technology and demographic segmentation. The low-hanging fruit for mHealth appears to be smartphone owners who are young, minorities and well educated. This presents tremendous opportunities to reach traditionally underserved and hard-to-reach populations with health information.

Although text messaging appears to be underused across all groups, texting specifically to the young may be another opportunity, albeit unexplored. Targeting information specifically of interest to women, such as weight loss, may be fruitful. Another segment of immediate interest is the chronically ill. Information available about various common conditions — such as heart disease, diabetes and certain cancers (such as prostate, lung and breast) — and how to manage them is likely to help drive mHealth adoption among this population.

While we tend to think about the endless array of cool mHealth apps that are being developed, we shouldn’t lose sight of the “app-nots” – those who cannot afford smartphones, are afraid of their complexity or just don’t want them. There are still millions of adult cell phone users – particularly in the upper middle age and elderly brackets – who might be willing to learn how to use their phones to access information about their health status, medical conditions and care delivery if the right apps were available and recommended by someone they trust.

While the Pew findings show that mHealth maybe isn’t quite as far along as we’d like to think, it is clear that mHealth has an inevitable, robust future. Some health plans are moving quickly, making acquisitions and developing their own mHealth apps, while others are in the strategic development stage.

Health plans not yet actively formulating an mHealth strategy risk being left behind. Fast-moving changes in technology combined with inevitable changes in the demographic composition of their membership will put these “appless” health plans at a significant competitive disadvantage. This will be doubly true once the millions of uninsured are signed up as new enrollees through health insurance exchange.

When that happens, outreach using nontraditional methods will be critical.

Source: Healthtechzone

By Drew Hendricks

The US Department of Health and Human Services calls it “mHealth.” The m stands for mobile and the term defines and includes the many ways in which mobile applications and devices are being used “to monitor a patient’s health remotely” and “improve health outcomes, healthcare services, and health research.”

With an estimated 40,000 mobile health apps available, new tablets and handheld devices on the market every day, and experts suggesting that people have already downloaded nearly 250 mobile health applications, it’s not a huge stretch to suggest that the smartphone is revolutionizing healthcare and our access to it.

Here are five examples of indisputably positive changes in healthcare that mobile devices are offering:

1. Triage Apps

Like WebMD only wiser, apps like iTriage walk the user through a step-by-step process that begins with identifying symptoms and ends in booking an appointment with a real doctor. This app is a natural step given that consulting the internet via an ailment keyword search has become commonplace for most people, even those who intend to go to a doctor anyway. These triage apps familiarize patients with standard treatments and medications as well.

2. Self Monitoring Devices

By placing a fingertip on the camera lens of an iPhone, an app by Azumio will determine your heart rate. Blood pressure, weight changes, calorie intake, muscle tension—the list goes on and on. Self monitoring devices not only encourage and reward by marking progress and allowing goals to be set and met, but they point out facets of lifestyle that are often overlooked by those who are simply focusing their efforts on one aspect of health like diet, or blood pressure.

3. Mobile Prescription Medication Refills

Major pharmacies like Walgreens are now offering a plethora of options for refilling prescriptions with minimal effort or human contact. The efficiency of the “reply to refill” email is only slightly out matched by the app that allows the user to refill multiple prescriptions, select which pharmacy those prescriptions should be filled at and what time they should be filled by, and even have them shipped from a saved account.

4. Planned Pregnancy

Advanced and detailed or whimsical and fun, for the pregnant, hoping to become pregnant, or people who just like to browse baby names, the world of apps has it all. Whether monitoring the progress of a baby, or planning a postpartum exercise routine apps like Sprout, iPregnancy, and Baby Checklist make a pregnant mother feel like they’re in the care of a talented nurse or midwife and such stress-reducing apps are not only good for mothers they’re good for babies.

5. Access to the CDC

Now if there’s a zombie takeover, or something more serious like a pandemic, or food recall, that information is available in free app form. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention app provides automatic news updates, articles and images about health, and important information about disease prevention. This is a definite improvement to the traditional trickle down method of obtaining such crucial information, and is especially good to have in case of an emergency.

---------------------
Drew Hendricks is an SEO and Social Media specialist living in Seattle, Washington. Drew writes words that people enjoy reading every moment they are awake.

Source: Techi

With the aid of wireless sensors and the Parker smartphone app, finding a parking spot just got a lot easier. (Credit: Streetline,Cisco)

Have you ever wanted to be able to just look at your phone and know where all of the open parking spaces are in your area? That, in a nutshell, is smart parking and it's coming to the San Francisco Bay Area thanks to a partnership between Streetline and Cisco. Interestingly, San Francisco itself isn't the first city in the San Francisco Bay Area to get these smart parking spaces. That honor belongs to Sausalito, which will be joined today by San Mateo and San Carlos.

Take a walk around downtown San Mateo or San Carlos today and you should be able to see the wireless sensors that make smart parking possible in action. We're told that the parking sensors can be installed in about 5 to 7 minutes. The process involves drilling a golf hole sized chunk out of the asphalt and dropping in the sensor with a bit of special glue and cement to keep it in place. The sensor uses a combination of a magnetometer and a light sensor to detect whether its assigned space is being occupied by a car and should be rugged enough to stand up to weather, dirt, and being rolled over by cars. Each sensor wirelessly communicates with the other sensors in the area as part of a Cisco Wi-Fi mesh network, automatically negotiating the most efficient connection to the cloud via an Internet gateway box installed in the area nearby.

End users will be able to interact with the data provided by the parking sensors via a mobile app called Parker, available for Android and iOS. Through Parker, drivers are able to find what city blocks or parking garages have parking available and how many spaces there are in real time. Users can then navigate to where those spaces are available and mark where they parked to find the car later. In cities that allow users to pay online, Parker can even be used to pay for parking or feed the meter.

By reducing the amount of time that drivers spend looking for parking, Streetline, Cisco, and city planners hope to also reduce traffic, pollution, and driver frustration, as well. The developers are in talks with city planners around the U.S. with an aim to expand smart parking beyond the pilot program areas and with automotive OEMs to link the parking data into in-car navigation systems.

Source: CNET

As smartphones become a more and more integral part of our daily lives, a group of engineers at the University of Rochester are predicting that they will soon be able to gauge a person’s mood in the same way our best friends and family members can—based on voice inflections.

This week, that team of engineers will debut a new computer program at the 2012 IEEE Workshop on Spoken Language Technology that gauges human feelings via speech patterns, with greater accuracy than any previous approach.

Built by graduate student Na Yang, the program is in the form of a smartphone app that displays either a happy or sad face based on its analysis of a user’s voice.

“The research is still in its early days,” says Na’s professor, Wendi Heinzelman, “but it is easy to envision a more complex app that could use this technology for everything from adjusting the colors displayed on your mobile to playing music fitting to how you’re feeling after recording your voice.”

The app analyzes 12 features of speech, including pitch and volume, to identify one of six different emotions from a voice recording. According to the researchers, it achieves 81 percent accuracy – improving on earlier programs that typically achieved about 55 percent accuracy.

To ‘teach’ the app how to determine a speaker’s mood, researchers first established 12 specific features in speech that were measured in different recordings. The researchers then categorized each of the recordings and used them to tell the program what sounds were “sad,” “happy,” “fearful,” “disgusted” or “neutral.”

“We actually used recordings of actors reading out the date of the month – it really doesn’t matter what they say, it’s how they’re saying it that we’re interested in,” Heinzelman said.

After being shown what to look for, the program analyzed new voice recordings and tried to identify any of its known emotions. If the program was unable to choose between two or more emotions, it labeled the recording unclassified.

The engineers are currently working with Rochester psychologists Melissa Sturge-Apple and Patrick Davies, who are assessing the technology in the context of interactions between teenagers and their parents.

“A reliable way of categorizing emotions could be very useful in our research,” Sturge-Apple said. “It would mean that a researcher doesn’t have to listen to the conversations and manually input the emotion of different people at different stages.”

She explained that the engineers are trying to replicate an innate process in humans that occurs mostly on a subconscious level.

“You might hear someone speak and think ‘oh, he sounds angry!’ But what is it that makes you think that?” asks Sturge-Apple.

She noted that our brains learn to detect a speaker’s emotions based on the way they alter their voice’s volume, pitch, and subtle harmonics.

“We don’t pay attention to these features individually, we have just come to learn what angry sounds like – particularly for people we know,” she said.

One problem that has plagued previous efforts to identify a speaker’s mood through a computer program has cropped up again in the new Rochester team’s endeavor – if the voice being detected is different from the one that trained the system, the app’s accuracy dropped from 81 percent to about 30 percent.

The researchers said they are looking at ways of minimizing this effect, potentially by training the system with a voice in the same age group and of the same gender.

Source: Redorbit

By Eric Wicklund

A new app from physician information resource Vitals allows consumers to use their mobile devices to research local providers based on a number of parameters and patient reviews. Users can also create lists of favorite doctors, and store personal information such as phone numbers and insurance information.

New York-based Vitals said the app is an extension of the company's website, which records upwards of 10 million hits each month.

Mitch Rothschild, the company's CEO, said in a press release, "The Vitals app makes it easier than ever to instantly find top doctors and specialists anywhere in the U.S., giving patients the information they need to make informed decisions about their health no matter where they are."

Rothschild said roughly 20 percent of the company's current web traffic comes through mobile devices, and that number is expected to rise as more and more people become comfortable with smartphones, notebooks and laptops.

"We have to be there to serve our users in as many different forms as they want to use," he commented.

Rothschild said the concept capitalizes on the intelligent shopping process now employed by consumers in many different arenas, as well as the push for transparency in healthcare. By aggregating information on physicians that includes public information and patient-provided reviews, Vitals looks to offer a resource for people who don't have access to their regular doctor and need to know what's available and where.

Rothschild said the mobile app isn't as feature-rich as the company's website, but it does give users what they want when they're away from home.

"The smaller screen means that we have to be more judicious about our information," he said. "We are an information-rich site, and with mobile, we obviously have to deal with the particular uses of that medium…In the end, you can really get a sense of who the good doctor is."

Rothschild said the Supreme Court's recent decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act "is really kind of turbo-charging our growth" because it promises to add millions of people to the nation's health insurance rolls, and they will want to know which local physicians are on which health plans.

Conversely, he said, physicians might want to be aware of the information on them that's available to the public.

"We have a whole portal to the physicians where they can append information or correct information," he pointed out, adding that any information supplied by the physician is labeled as such. "Being proactive certainly does help."

Source: Physbiztech

By Diana Manos

At a Dec. 10 report-release briefing, Janet Marchibroda, chair of the Health IT Initiative at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said smartphones have changed every aspect of American life, including the way Americans shop, travel and manage their finances. "If we could apply that use of smartphones to healthcare, great things would result," she said.

Barriers on the consumer side often include lack of awareness that the apps are out there, and more innovation is still needed in the marketplace.

Farzad Mostashari, MD, national coordinator for health information technology, who spoke at the briefing, said one barrier is often providers' lack of understanding of HIPAA. "Sometimes it’s interpreted that HIPAA means, 'I can’t give you your health information.' HIPAA gives people a right to access the information in the format that they want."

Mostashari said the main message from ONC’s tiger teams is that authentication for smartphones is here: "People want access to their healthcare records."

Tom Daschle, former U.S. Senate Majority Leader and co-founder of the Bipartisan Policy Center said patient engagement is still a critical and missing piece to improving American healthcare and lowering costs – and smartphones could be a part of that.

"At eighteen percent and rising, healthcare spending is placing a considerable burden on our economy," added Marchibroda. "Identifying ways to decrease healthcare costs is critically important to our nation."

Electronic tools can improve patient-physician communication, she said. Patient-centered communication is associated with fewer diagnostic tests and higher adherence to medication. It has also been associated with a positive impact on behavioral changes and patient self-care management. "Engaged patients are also more satisfied when they are knowledgeable, involved and empowered," she added.

"While healthcare providers have widely embraced patient engagement, it’s sometimes hard to get there," said Marchibroda. Patient-doctor communication most often takes place in the exam room, for less than 20 minutes at a time, she added. This makes it difficult for physicians and patients to communicate. The use of electronic communication tools could help tackle problems before they happen and improve the experience for patients.

Source: Physbiztech

By Allison Aubrey

But how effective are these tools?

Industri telekomunikasi rugi miliaran Euro akibat persaingan dengan aplikasi pesan sosial seperti Facebook dan WhatsApp. Saatnya bagi industri untuk melawan balik.