At the small family medicine practice of Christopher Crooker, M.D., in Lawrenceville, Ga., about 50 patients enthusiastically wear Fitbit activity bands and iHealth devices to track their daily steps, sleep and other wellness measures.
The tracker data and other information the patients enter stream into an app on their mobile phones called “healow,” the new wellness portal built by EHR vendor eClinicalWorks LLC. Crooker’s Gwinnett Center Medical Associates practice has been using healow since January after eClinicalWorks rolled it out following a two-year, $75 million development project.
On his end, Crooker, a fitness buff, calls up the patients’ healow charts on a monitor during examinations and goes over the results together with the patients.
“It’s really gotten the patients excited about taking care of themselves,” Shari Crooker, a registered nurse and the practice administrator, said in a phone interview. “It’s patient engagement. You can take care of your own health and show it to Dr. Crooker. It’s fun, and we can actually do something with the information.”
