Your iPhone Just Called: Your Blood-Sugar Is High
Earlier this year, Mike Dionne signed up for Polka, a smart-phone application that lets him use his iPhone to keep tabs on the health of his elderly father, who lives 80 miles away. It tracks his dad’s numerous doctors’ appointments, his insulin and medication schedule and other health information.
Then in August, a new doctor examining Mr. Dionne’s father detected an aneurysm, something the son was able to confirm from afar. Over the phone, Mr. Dionne consulted Polka, the application he and his siblings maintain on behalf of their father, and was able to tell the doctor when the aneurysm was first diagnosed, by which doctor and the last recorded size.
“Before this, all I had was a note that was stuck in a paper file,” says the younger Mr. Dionne, a 60-year-old retiree from West Barnstable, Mass. “Now the family has the same knowledge base for some consistency.”
