Dirk Knemeyer has a few questions about Apple's ideas for a mobile medical solution.

This coming June, Apple is expected to announce their “Healthbook” app. In a bold expansion on the concepts of Involution’s hGraph app, Apple is attempting not only to federate all of a user’s important, top-level health and wellness data but also to synchronize with hardware devices that do everything from analyze blood to count steps to monitor heart rate.

Mockup of Healthbook screen published to Behance this past February.

There's no question that healthcare is an industry yearning for the advancements promised by Big Data analytics. Healthcare data is expected to grow between 1.2 to 2.4 exabytes per year — about 1,000 times the amount of data the human brain is capable of storing. This data is disparate and unstructured, making the extraction of useful information almost impossible. It is here that Big Data analytics promises to save the industry billions of dollars. This week Ricky Ribiero at Biz Tech Magazine joins the many voices investigating this trend. In his article, “Will Big Data Become the Big Savior of Health?” Ribiero illustrates how analytics can improve health outcomes and how tracking personal health, even down to the genome, can radically improve health. Ribiero cites a 2011 McKinsey & Co. report that states, “If US healthcare were to use big data creatively and effectively to drive efficiency and quality, the sector could create more than $300 billion in value every year.”

“While it’s true that analytics can reshape the way healthcare operates at an individual level,” Ribiero writes, “companies are hard at work trying to figure out how to leverage Big Data to improve health at the population level, too.”

Involution Studios' hGraph — the only open source visualization for your complete health metrics — is being featured this month in "Digital Diagnosis: A New Generation of Healthcare Technology" in EContent Magazine.

The column, written by Eileen Mullan, explores how apps and visualization services like hGraph can help cut through the hassle of going to the doctor. Mullan writes, "hGraph is [...] designed to increase awareness of the individual factors that can affect overall health. Basically, it gives you (and your doctor) a holistic view of your health. You can have your entire medical history in one place, just like that. Imagine what something like hGraph will do for the future of healthcare industry (and for the time you waste in the waiting room)?"

Involution's hGraph, an open source health metrics visualization, was recently featured in Wired Magazine online, highlighted in the article, “How Restyling the Mundane Medical Record Could Improve Health Care.” The Wired spot discusses hGraph’s strong social component: By tracking the data for entire families hGraph illustrates how some conditions, like obesity and heart disease, can be affected by collective health choices.

Health IT Buzz, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services innovation blog, also mentioned hGraph as a notable entry to the Patient Health Record Graphic Design Contest, where it inspired the judges and challenged the status quo. The article notes that Involution designers “weren’t afraid to think outside the box.” A simple-to-use tool like hGraph has the potential to improve patient care, prevent medication errors, and supply clear health metrics. By making health records usable and interactive, this software can empower doctors, caregivers, and patients to make better health decisions and save lives.

For Immediate Release
BOSTON, MA - October 19, 2012 - Involution Studios today announced that hGraph, an open source system for visualizing personal health metrics, has been selected as a finalist in the Healthcare and Wellness category for the 17th Annual MITX Interactive Awards. Held annually by the Massachusetts Innovation and Technology Exchange, the Awards recognize excellence in the creation of web innovations designed, produced, or developed in New England. Since 1996 the MITX Awards have grown to become the largest and most prestigious awards competition for innovation in digital, celebrating the best creative and technological accomplishments emerging from the region.

Yesterday at the New England Health Datapalooza, held at the DCU Center in Worcester, Mass., judges Pierce Graham-Jones, Innovator in Residence at the US Department of Health and Human Services; John Halamka, CIO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Group; and Manu Tandon, CIO of the MA Department of HHS, selected hGraph, an open system for visualizing personal health metrics designed by Involution Studios, as the second place finisher in the regional competition.