Harvard Appliance Inc. is launching a new healthcare app, the Hooper, that is aimed at helping hospitals and health care providers better understand how to incorporate respiratory systems into their existing services.
The Hooper will provide clinicians with tools for quickly, easily, and accurately diagnosing and treating patients with acute respiratory infections.
The app, developed by a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), will be available on Apple’s App Store and Google Play on Tuesday, according to a release from the company.
Users will be able to quickly find information about their symptoms, prescribe medications, and ask for specific treatment plans.
The team also plans to provide additional tools to clinicians to help them better understand the respiratory system and to improve the efficiency of care.
The initial release of the Hoopers app was recently acquired by the University of Southern California’s Hospitality Technology Lab, which will provide the app’s design and development.
“Our goal with this app is to be able (at) any point in time, to be in a position to quickly and easily provide care to patients with any type of respiratory system, any kind of disease,” said Scott Stadler, president and chief operating officer of the Hospitality Tech Lab.
“We want to make it as easy as possible for clinicians to interact with patients.”
In addition to the Hooping app, Harvard’s Hospital Services and Technology Lab has launched an app called MyFirstCare, which is a comprehensive toolkit for healthcare professionals.
The company’s Hospital Technology Lab is also developing a mobile app that will help clinicians manage their patients’ respiratory systems and monitor their health.
The hospital’s Health Services and Innovation Lab, founded in 2010, will also be releasing a new app on Tuesday called Hospice.
The new app will be the first of its kind from a major healthcare provider to be released on a platform such as the Apple App Store.
For its part, the Harvard Hospitals Medical Center (HMC) said it will soon begin offering its own version of the app for patients, with a launch planned for early 2018.
“The HMC has been working closely with the Hospital Services Technology Lab on this effort and we are confident that our collaboration will be a game changer for healthcare,” said HMC President and CEO William Schaller.
“This app is the first step towards making healthcare simpler, more accessible, and more accurate and convenient for our patients.”
The release of a hospital app comes after hospitals and other health care facilities across the country began to embrace the use of new respiratory systems, including respiratory masks.
Hospitals have long been known to offer free or discounted hospital care to residents who do not have the money to pay for private rooms.
The number of people with respiratory problems is on the rise, with the U.S. population expected to reach about 10 million by 2050, according the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The U.K.’s Royal Free Hospital in central London has since launched a free respiratory care service called Paediatric Respiratory Care, which provides care for children under six months old.
Other hospitals in the U., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have also begun offering respiratory services to their residents.
The use of respiratory masks and devices has been increasingly becoming the norm for healthcare workers.
In 2017, there were more than 5 million visits to emergency rooms and hospitals for respiratory disorders, according data from the CDC.
In 2018, there was an increase of 7.5% in hospitalizations and 3.6% in emergency department visits for respiratory conditions, according statistics from the World Health Organization.