JH Announces Health Care App for iPhone

Jewish Hospital & St. Mary’s Health-Care (JHSMH) launched an iPhone application (app) on April 12 that will help community members find a physician, make an appointment, locate an emergency room, track their diet and more. JHSMH is the first hospital in the region to develop its own, custom mobile application. The Blackberry app will be coming soon as well.

The new app features:

Find a physician service, including appointment requests. Users can search by zip code, physician specialty, gender and whether the office offers after-hours services.

  • A Google map will direct the patient to the desired location using the phone’s GPS coordinates.
  • Help in finding which of the seven area Jewish Emergency Rooms is located nearest you. JHSMH has the largest number of ER front doors in the city, providing convenience when time matters most.
  • A food diary and calorie tracker that helps users monitor daily caloric intake by searching for items they have eaten (listed by food group), calculating the calorie intake and adding the information to their food diary.
  • A continuous stream of health news and tips as well as JHSMH-specific news and press releases.
  • A Body Mass Index (BMI) calculator to help users determine whether they are within a healthy weight range.

The app is free to download from the App Store on iTunes, through links available at www.jhsmh.org and soon from the Blackberry App Store.  This app was developed exclusively for Jewish Hospital & St. Mary’s HealthCare and contains information specific to JHSMH and the Louisville community.

“Our goal with this app is to build an ongoing relationship with our patients,” said Jeff Polson, JHSMH vice president of marketing and communications. “We also wanted to create an app specifically designed around what makes JHSMH unique – breaking news, multiple ER and physician locations and a focus on prevention.”

JHSMH recently launched a text messaging alert program. Community members can text “JEWISH” to 511511 to sign up for weekly health news and tips.

In addition, JHSMH maintains active Facebook and Twitter pages (facebook.com/jewishhospital and twitter.com/jewishhospital) and has a YouTube page featuring patient and team member videos.

“Social media has been a huge area of growth and focus for us over the last year,” Polson said. “As the way the world communicates changes, we must adapt as well.  We’re proud to be a leader in health care social media, not only in our community, but across the nation.”

The app was developed locally by Breakout Creative, in conjunction with Interactive Media Lab. JHSMH plans to make additions and improvements to the app’s capabilities over time based on user feedback.

Leave a Reply