Empower Nurses With mHealth Tools

By Jeff Arnold, CEO and Chairman

Like Judi Mottl, editor of FierceMobileHealthcare, I was extremely disappointed to learn that nurses may be at the bottom of healthcare systems’ priority list of those they plan to arm with mobile healthcare tools. As founder of Sharecare, and former CEO and founder of WebMD, you’d expect me to have a strong opinion on this – but my passion on this topic also is fueled by witnessing the incredible work of nurses first hand, including my wife who was as a pediatric oncology nurse several years ago. It’s humbling to see the challenges that nursing professionals face every day on the front lines of healthcare – whether they are gathering vitals, administering care plans and instructions, helping the physician get the full picture of a patient’s health or simply – and possibly most important – using their knowledge to comfort patients and families, not drive them to panic. I think back on how my wife and her nursing colleagues worked tirelessly to balance all of those equally challenging demands, and wonder that if the technology existed then that does today, how much more could they have done for their patients? Depriving our nurses of the latest technology to help them do their jobs even better is simply not an option. We have an undeniable responsibility to figure this out, not just to help our nurses but to help all of us live healthier lives.