A mobile health app aimed at improving tuberculosis care in Baltimore is underway and aimed at helping TB patients stay on track with medication and therapy, according to a report at HealthData Management.
The pilot program, initiated by the City of Baltimore Health Department, hopes to ease a CDC requirement called Directly Observed Therapy (DOT), that mandates a physician observe a patient taking TB medication each day for a period of six months.
The smartphone app being tested allows patients to video tape medication intake and share that video with a clinician via a Web platform interface. Such an approach will save the city's health department labor costs while still providing high-level care, according to city health officials.
"We believe that the miDOT app will increase the health department's capacity to provide quality care for TB patients while freeing up clinician time for other critical TB control activities," Patrick Chaulk, M.D., health department acting deputy commissioner for communicable disease, told HealthData Management. Article