Looking for a software / app to track the general health

[Terry (Terrywt53)]

Hi,

I am looking for a software, a website or a mobile app to organise health tracking for me and for my family - when I was sick, what was the cause of sickness (if discovered), how long I was, etc.

I tried to use Excel, but it leaves a lot to desire in terms of interface and functionality.

If there is something like that already exists - could you point me in the right direction please.

Cheers.

[Rajiv_Mehta]

Hi Terry,
You might look at CareZone.com, and use their Journal or Notes functions to record such information for yourself and your family.
My own app (Unfrazzle) is meant for helping to remember and keep track of day-to-day health/wellness/care activities.

[ejain (Eric Jain)]

I tried to use Excel, but it leaves a lot to desire in terms of interface and functionality.

What specifically do you dislike about using Excel for this?

[Terry (Terrywt53)]

Hi Terry,
You might look at CareZone.com, and use their Journal or Notes functions to record such information for yourself and your family.
My own app (Unfrazzle) is meant for helping to remember and keep track of day-to-day health/wellness/care activities.

The CareZone.com looks very slick for a free to use application. No wonder why people asking questions such as “is it really free”, “how does you make money” Will need to give it a try to see is it really usable - it does not seem to have any reporting capabilities now - to present the data what has been entered into the system.

I also did some research and found two other websites:

medhelp.org and patientslike.com - seems to be similar to CareZone.com but with a poorer UI. Also both websites have some ways to share the health / disease information between users.

If you seen these website before - what do you think about them?

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I tried to use Excel, but it leaves a lot to desire in terms of interface and functionality.

What specifically do you dislike about using Excel for this?

In two words - out of the box features and usability.

Excel organizes the data in terms of cells, columns, rows and sheets via formulas and cell references. While health tracking software should organise the data in terms of patients, symptoms, dates, doctors, etc.

Also, for the software to be useful it should, in addition to the information gathering, storage and search capabilities, contain some active component to help an user/patient to produce something useful from that data - at the very minimum a reminder function “go to the Dr. Smith on 5th of December, here’s the address, you have been there 5 times before, list of all previous visits goes here …” and ideally some predictive analytics.

Excel simply does not do the above out of the box.

[ejain (Eric Jain)]

In two words - out of the box features and usability.

Excel organizes the data in terms of cells, columns, rows and sheets via formulas and cell references. While health tracking software should organise the data in terms of patients, symptoms, dates, doctors, etc.

Also, for the software to be useful it should, in addition to the information gathering, storage and search capabilities, contain some active component to help an user/patient to produce something useful from that data - at the very minimum a reminder function “go to the Dr. Smith on 5th of December, here’s the address, you have been there 5 times before, list of all previous visits goes here …” and ideally some predictive analytics.

Excel simply does not do the above out of the box.

Thanks for the insight.

I suspect it’s the same problem as with project management software: Everyone wants things to work a little bit different. So products that start out great often end up bloated and hard to use once they try to expand their user base…

[Terry (Terrywt53)]

In two words - out of the box features and usability.

Excel organizes the data in terms of cells, columns, rows and sheets via formulas and cell references. While health tracking software should organise the data in terms of patients, symptoms, dates, doctors, etc.

Also, for the software to be useful it should, in addition to the information gathering, storage and search capabilities, contain some active component to help an user/patient to produce something useful from that data - at the very minimum a reminder function “go to the Dr. Smith on 5th of December, here’s the address, you have been there 5 times before, list of all previous visits goes here …” and ideally some predictive analytics.

Excel simply does not do the above out of the box.

Thanks for the insight.

I suspect it’s the same problem as with project management software: Everyone wants things to work a little bit different. So products that start out great often end up bloated and hard to use once they try to expand their user base…

Good point - agree. But at the same time the software what only provides a minimal, “passive”, data capturing functionality is not much better than a data management tool.

[myfitnesscompanion]

Hi,

I am looking for a software, a website or a mobile app to organise health tracking for me and for my family - when I was sick, what was the cause of sickness (if discovered), how long I was, etc.

I tried to use Excel, but it leaves a lot to desire in terms of interface and functionality.

If there is something like that already exists - could you point me in the right direction please.

Cheers.

Please have a look at myFitnessCompanion. This is an Android app where you can track the health for you and your family members. You can track all sorts of biometric data such as weight, blood pressure, blood glucose using Bluetooth sensors or manual input.

A complete revamp of the app is planned for mid december.
Here a preview http://vimeo.com/79021242

[Richard_Ryan (Richard)]

Please have a look at myFitnessCompanion. This is an Android app where you can track the health for you and your family members. You can track all sorts of biometric data such as weight, blood pressure, blood glucose using Bluetooth sensors or manual input.

A complete revamp of the app is planned for mid december.
Here a preview http://vimeo.com/79021242

This looks appealing and the connection to MS Health Vault is a nice touch. Is there an iPhone app planned?

[myfitnesscompanion]

Please have a look at myFitnessCompanion. This is an Android app where you can track the health for you and your family members. You can track all sorts of biometric data such as weight, blood pressure, blood glucose using Bluetooth sensors or manual input.

A complete revamp of the app is planned for mid december.
Here a preview http://vimeo.com/79021242

This looks appealing and the connection to MS Health Vault is a nice touch. Is there an iPhone app planned?

Sofar only for Android phones. We are now working on incorporating medication tracking. There are a lot of people out there that want to track their medication intake.

[andrewj (Andrewjawitz)]

Hello All,
I’ve been on my own quest for a unified health data portal that can integrate daily tracking/logging data into official EHRs pulled from various patient portals using the Blue Button standard. Such a quest came about after my son was born with a rare birth defect called Esophageal Atresia, and while it appears to have been corrected in surgery, we do need to be very vigilant about tracking anything that might be unusual. My wife and I have been using the “baby-connect” Android app to track our newborn’s growth, feedings, medications, changes and medical appointments. Tracking has already been a godsend as working from memory led us to provide inaccurate information about his birthweight which led to unnecessary concern that he wasnt gaining enough weight. At our last appointment we were able to show detailed charts about everything from diaper changes, to feeding regularity and it helped the medical team enormously.
Considering the medical value of such information, I have been searching for a way to combine his tracking data with his official Electronic Health Records (EHRs) that we’re able to access through various patient portals. Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be any open source platform for creating a “Personal Health Record” (PHR) so we’ve had to go with Microsoft HealthVault. My own prejudices aside, HV seems pretty useful and importing medical records from different providers was very easy. Unfortunately, the same can not be said for importing the tracking data from baby-connect… HV does provide an SDK for app developers, but so far supported apps are either oriented towards specific adult health concerns like heart disease or commercial devices like the Fitbit. The only available option for baby-connect or any other Android app appears to be through .csv export, but I have no idea how to format this data for HV.

Can anybody help me with any one of the following-
Find an open source alternative to Microsoft HealthVault
Find a full featured Baby Tracker app for Android with support for HealthVault
Expand tracking fields in HealthVault to include relevant baby-tracking features
Find a third-party app with support for both CCD/CCR data exported from HV and csv data exported through tracking apps

                                                                                                                  Help Would Be ENORMOUSLY APPRECIATED!
                                                                                                                         Andrew Jawitz

            P.S- I have already searched the QS guide and nothing shows up that I havent already tried.

[philippatterson (Carlieharris8)]

Hi Terry,
I found this amazing app called SpidFit Walknation which helps you to track your walk all day long and achieve points. It is a fun and interactive app that lets you manage a healthy lifestyle even when the world is continuously moving towards sedentary lifestyle.