NEW YORK – Add UsableNet to the list of mobile application vendors seeking a piece of the healthcare pie.
The company, based in New York and Italy and with a long list of clients that includes Amtrak, American Airlines, Delta, Hilton, Hyatt, Victoria’s Secret, Sears and Kmart, specializes in providing access to a company’s Web site and online information through mobile platforms.
Recently, the company announced partnerships with Walgreens and CVS to enable users to fill prescriptions, receive e-mail reminders and shop for healthcare products online.
“We can take a complicated Web site and make it accessible,” said Jason Taylor, the company’s vice president of mobile products. “Our clients have functionality that they want to put into the hands of their users 24/7. We give them that opportunity without the need for a client’s IT resources.”
Walgreens, billed as the nation’s largest drugstore chain and a destination for health and wellness services, recently rolled out a new Web site through the UsableNet platform. Customers can shop for healthcare products, find information about common health concerns like allergies, exercise and weight loss and access “health calculators” that can help assess healthy body weight, target heart rate and amount of body fat. Through the company’s online pharmacy, customers can enter a prescription number online for in-store pickup of prescriptions, enable the pharmacy to process refills automatically and send an e-mail notification when a prescription is ready or remind a customer to refill a prescription.
Taylor said UsableNet markets its platform as an agnostic base that can be customized to fit a client’s needs. As the healthcare market moves toward a patient-centric format, he said, providers will be seeking platforms like UsableNet’s to communicate with customers.
“The mobile device is set to become an extension of the healthcare infrastructure,” he said.
