Knox Spencer Associates on Wednesday announced the launch of Doctors Report Illness Tracker, a new mobile app for Android and iOS devices that’s meant to provide users with real-time data on health-related trends observed by clinicians across the United States. The Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based firm also launched an accompanying website meant to serve as a browser-based counterpart to the mobile service, making both available to U.S. residents free of charge. The platform is powered by nearly a million doctors’ offices from all parts of the country, allowing users to quickly search through reports so as to determine the currently largest health trends and risks in their area. The app boasts robust filtering capabilities that can even allow you to search for notable trends by ZIP codes, being primarily meant to assist in disease prevention.
All information provided by Doctors Report Illness Tracker is de-identified and available in what the company claims is a “timely” manner. The very same data is said to be tracked by healthcare providers, allowing them to react to any potential disease outbreaks. Among other illnesses, the vanilla version of the service can track common cold, flu, sore throats, pneumonia, conjunctivitis, bronchitis, strep, croup, ear infections, otitis media, and Lyme disease, as well as gastroenteritis and MRSA. The app boasts a relatively straightforward user interface that’s advertised as being intuitive to navigate, whereas it’s also said to be useful to clinicians looking to make more informed decisions about treating their patients. Every patient visit that results in a payor such as an insurance company or a government agency settling a medical bill in a participating doctors’ office generates additional data that’s streamed through the app. The idea for the original concept of the solution is attributed to attorney Dan Shaw who essentially envisioned a platform delivering a prognosis for illnesses that’s comparable to weather forecasts in terms of scientific accuracy.
The Doctors Report Illness Tracker app can be downloaded from the Google Play Store by referring to the banner below. The solution is also available on the Amazon Appstore and is compatible with the vast majority of modern smartphones and tablets running Android 4.4 KitKat and later versions of Google’s omnipresent mobile operating system.
