Hey Doc, Wake Up Better

It’s easier than ever for someone to give his or her two-cents-worth. In 140 characters you can say whatever you want about almost anything to just about everyone. But hey, times have changed and the cost of an idea is a little higher than it use to be. So if you’re going to say it, make it count. And so we will.

Sleep. That’s it. Sleep. Okay if you want your 99-cents-worth, the Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock App for your iPhone or Android phone.

What does an alarm clock have to do with what we write about here? Well, this particular idea involves you, your patient community, your use of social media and mobile. We talk about those things here every month. But this time, instead of talking about it we’re going to do something together.

The wellness benefits to a good night’s sleep are well document and so no matter your specialty, there’s an application for your use of this app and a health benefit to be realized by you and your patient.

Practice Family Medicine?  When you’re sleep deprived, you often feel “worn down” -- and that’s a clue that your body is vulnerable to infection. “Not getting enough sleep makes you more vulnerable to picking up illnesses and not being able to fight them off,” says Donna Arand, PhD, DABSM, clinical director of the Kettering Sleep Disorders Center in Dayton, Ohio.  Can’t convince yourself or your patient that one or the other isn’t getting enough sleep? Let the app help.

Cardiology your area of expertise? Then you know the story. But does your patient? Former President Bill Clinton confessed that he thinks lack of sleep had a lot to do with his hospitalization to unblock a clogged artery (okay, maybe the Big Macs were part of it too but he’s on to something) "I didn't sleep much for a month, that probably accelerated what was already going on," Clinton said. 

He’s probably right. “When you don’t get enough sleep, you have an inflammatory response in your cardiovascular system -- in the blood vessels and arteries -- and that’s not a good thing!” says Arand. “We see the same thing in hypertension. If that sleep deprivation continues long term, chronic inflammation has been linked to things like heart attack, stroke, and diabetes.”

In the Mid-South and Delta Region we’re all aware of the diabetes, okay I’ll say it, epidemic. The key underlying problem in Type 2 Diabetes is insulin resistance, where the body does not make proper use of this sugar-processing hormone. Guess what? When you’re sleep deprived, your body almost immediately develops conditions that resemble the insulin resistance of diabetes.

And it’s not just in those we can spot walking down the street. “In one study of young, healthy adult males, they decreased their sleep time to about four hours per night for six nights,” says Arand. “At the end of those six nights, every one of those healthy young men was showing impaired glucose tolerance, a precursor to developing diabetes.”

Another study found that people in their late 20s and early 30s who slept less than 6.5 hours per night had the insulin sensitivity of someone more than 60 years old.

So, what’s this got to do with the app? Many of us lack the discipline to do even the simplest things to improve our health. But a recent survey found that 9 out of 10 smartphone owners wake up with their smartphone. Maybe we can use that information do something powerful.

You, your patients, our friends, and me are invited to participate in our Wake Up Better Y’all experiment. It's not necessarily scientific but certainly a fun and well-intentioned effort to see if what we do here together can be good for us.

Besides, one of the main features of the app is to wake you up at the right time. Not just the time you set the alarm for but in your lightest sleep phase. When that happens you’re more likely to awake renewed and on the ‘right side of the bed’. And everyone us around will appreciate that.

For more information on the Wake Up Better Y’all experiment and the Sleep Cycle App visit www.wakeupbetteryall.com or hit me up on twitter.

Hat tip to the good people at webMD and Donna Arand, PhD, DABSM, clinical director of the Kettering Sleep Disorders Center in Dayton, Ohio.

Hey Doc, We Live in the Future

We live in the future. And you know it's true. This past weekend I was watching some reruns of shows from my childhood. I saw the Jetsons. I saw Star Trek. And that's when it occurred to me, we live in the future.

I watched as Mr. Spacely called George Jetson on his television. Well that's what we thought it was at the time. Little did we know that there would be Skype, Google Hangouts and FaceTime that would allow us to talk to someone face-to-face miles away or just around the corner. We can now see and converse with others without leaving our homes. Without leaving our offices. At the convenience of the caller and at the convenience of the one we called.

I saw Star Trek. And I'm sure it's occurred to you before now, that the “communicator” in the hand of Mr. Spock or Captain Kirk was actually a lot like a smartphone. Spock’s ability to turn that handheld device into something that would read the environment or Dr. McCoy’s ability to use it or something like it to scan a body was beyond belief. Now we have apps that power our iPhones and Android devices to do similarly futuristic things.

Look, it's easy to get bogged down in the rules and regulations of an industry. They're there to protect us all. Comply. But what if we allow our imaginations to lead for a minute as relates to the part of doctoring that really matters to us most, patient engagement.

We'd find ways to connect with those who can't get from their homes and to our offices.

What if we find ways to empower patients to tend to themselves, to know more about the environment that they're in and how it affects their health?

We'd have smarter patients and better health outcomes.

Okay enough of the hyperbole it's time to get real. We live in the future. But we practice too much in the past.

So here's what a savvy doctors going to do this year: tap into that Jetsons television thing and enable patients or colleagues to communicate via Skype or Apple’s FaceTime to explore what needs to be explored. 

My twitter-friend Dr. Howard Luks (@HJLuks on Twitter) says that he finds this approach to telemedicine useful in consulting with his patients and would invite conversation, by FaceTime no doubt, with doctors who might be trying to find their way toward the future.

Speaking of exploration, savvy doctors will learn how to use mobile devices and apps that run on them to help patients communicate with their doctor and to help the patient and doctor know more about the environment that they are in and how such circumstances affect their well-being.

Last March I met Dr. Daniel Kraft, MD (@daniel_kraft on Twitter) at SXSWi (South by Southwest Innovation conference). He was there to speak on health care innovation powered by smartphones. It was cool. And it would have seemed like “future talk” were it not for the number of people in the room already using one or more of the diet, exercise, sleep monitoring, cardio, diabetes and anxiety management apps he spoke of there.

Look, George Jetson would get out on the now ever so commonplace treadmill to exercise his dog. Maybe this is the year to exercise your medical practice. Maybe this is the time to rethink patient engagement so that we can get off this crazy thing called the status quo and into the future. Some of us are already there.

Mobile: Everything All the Time

I'm not a numbers guy but there are some numbers that shouldn't be ignored. Like these: Nielsen reports that 150 million smartphones will be in use by mid-2011. Somewhere in those numbers you'll find your prospects, your customers, your patients and/or your members. But, will they find you?

The smartphone is not a toy. In this age of over-programmed-living, devices like the iPhone, Blackberry, and Android have become a vital tool for connecting with work and friends - especially among women. Nielsen reports that women have accepted the smartphone at a faster rate than men. They're using the phone to move appointments, get driving directions, and check email (the guy's favorite). But, they're also using it to download in-store coupons and make social posts. Actually the Nielsen survey reports that 9 out of 10 women use their smartphone to stay connected via social media posts. Not just connected with friends but with their preferred brands.

Ah, their preferred brands. That's subject to change. Smartphone toting consumers -- whether they're members of your association, volunteers in your sorority, patients at your clinic, shoppers in your boutique or any other form of prospective member, customer or patient -- will redefine your relationship with them using a new variable: convenience.

The Nielsen survey found that 83% of smartphone users never leave home without them. My own informal polling at meetings and presentations finds that number to be 100%. Not laptops. Smartphones.

How do you overlook a customer touch-point that is available nearly 100% of the
time?

The women in our survey said that they use their smartphone to make important brand connections (not just voice calls) in the moments between work meetings, PTA, carpool, volunteer work, the kid's piano practice and so on. They use it because it's convenient. And, they are inclined to browse their smartphone until they find an option (i.e. any product or service) that connects with their on-the-go lifestyle.

Am I suggesting that you build a smartphone app tonight? No. It's possible that a mobile app should be part of your strategy but until then create a mobile website with the on-the-go elements of your brand. By the way, our stats show that nearly 97%of attempts to load websites via a smartphone "bounce" or fail because the site doesn't support mobile browsing. That means frustrated prospects and customers who may try another option. STOP MISSING the CONNECTIONS available through the convenience of a smartphone. Mobile is no longer an option. It is everything.

Bigfish builds mobile websites and we recently launched our own. Visit it on your iPhone, Blackberry, Android or other smartphone.

You and I can connect on www.twitter.com/timbigfish or www.facebook.com/timcnicholson. Work it in while your waiting on that Peppermint Latte this holiday season :-)