We Made an App With Allina Health That’s Improving Cardiovascular Care!

A couple of years back, Dogtown Media had the awesome opportunity to work with Allina Health and the Minneapolis Heart Institute on developing a MedTech app to improve cardiovascular care. Fast forward to now, and our collaboration is doing much more than just catching momentum in the app market — it’s helping save lives!

One of the Biggest Issues of Our Era

Heart health issues comprise some of the most serious medical problems in the United States. Roughly 84 million people in the U.S. have a form of cardiovascular disease. By 2030, this disease alone is expected to cost the U.S. $818 billion annually.

Unfortunately, it’s common for current protocols for handling cardiovascular emergencies to only be available on printed paper. Not only is this documentation usually not readily available when crisis strikes, but it’s also often outdated information that hasn’t been updated for years.

Getting to the Heart of the Problem

Mark Ebeling, Patient Care Manager at the Minneapolis Heart Institute, saw this problem and knew that something needed to be done. It was simply unacceptable for lives on the line to be in jeopardy because a healthcare provider didn’t have easy access to the latest protocols.

In 2016, we started working with Mark on this endeavor. The end result was a mobile app that gives healthcare providers 24/7 access to up-to-date cardiovascular emergency protocols. Besides access anywhere and anytime, providers could also seamlessly contact other medical professionals for consultation or to transfer a patient to a different department if need be.

Making a Big Difference in MedTech

When Mark first thought of the idea, he was looking for a convenient way for providers in the Minneapolis Heart Insitute’s network to get the latest heart attack treatment protocols quickly. He explains, “When we started working on the mobile app, it was intended for a few hundred physicians and other providers around the region.”

After the app was launched in October 2016, it was clear that the app solved a problem much bigger than its original scope. It has been downloaded more than 4,000 times in seven countries!

We’re extremely honored to have gotten the chance to work with Allina Health on this app. Every day in our L.A.-based development studio, we get the opportunity to push the boundaries of technology to bring app ideas to life. But it isn’t every day that we can say our app ends up helping save lives.

We couldn’t be prouder of what this collaboration with Allina Health has achieved, and we are excited to see what it accomplishes next.