Israeli Company Launches World’s First GPS-Based Mobile Heart Attack App
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by Anav Silverman / Tazpit News Agency
Shaare Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem. Photo: Wiki Commons.
NEW YORK and JERUSALEM – The world’s first HIPAA-compliant mobile application for cardiac patients and high-risk cardiac patients was launched for the U.S. market on Tuesday, February 11. Developed by Israeli Danny Oberman, the app is known as CathMaps+ and provides emergency assistance by integrating a patient’s cardiac history with an interactive map of Cath Labs.
CathMaps+, owned by Kickstart LLC, is available for most Android and iOS users, and provides cardiac patients with tailored emergency tools in case of a follow-on incident, as well as GPS mapping of the nearest catheterization labs in many countries around the world. It also allows cardiologists fast access to critical medical history in an emergency, ensuring more informed, personalized and effective treatment.
CathMaps+ was created by founder and CEO, Oberman, who himself experienced a cardiac incident in 2013. Because of this experience, and his personal understanding of what it means to live with an elevated risk of a heart attack, Oberman envisioned creating a tool that would help alleviate the associated anxiety. As a technology expert, his vision is to provide other cardiac patients with peace of mind through a simple, easy to use and functional app in times of emergency.
“By creating and launching the CathMaps+ app, it is my hope that heart disease patients and their families will be equipped with a sense of normalcy and peace of mind as they go about their daily lives, and even travel,” says Oberman, who made aliyah to Israel from Melbourne, Australia, in 1975.
CathMaps+ is the only app to integrate a patient’s cardiac history with an interactive map of catheterization facilities throughout most of the world. While CathMaps+ is private, with user permission, information can be shared with loved ones, caregivers, or emergency professionals.
“As a cardiologist, I must commend Danny Oberman and his company’s work on developing this new application,” says Dr. Jack Stroh, an Interventional Cardiologist at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and St. Peter’s University Hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey. “With the levels of heart disease on the rise in the U.S., the medical community must remain vigilant in our efforts to provide patients with tools and information that can help improve the quality of their lives.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that each year approximately 715,000 Americans have a heart attack. Of these, 525,000 are a first heart attack and 190,000 happen in people who have already had a heart attack. With the launch of the new CathMaps+ app, in the event of another heart attack, hundreds of thousands of Americans will be able to locate and receive directions to the nearest catheterization labs throughout most of the world, as well as securely access and share their medical records with lab staff.
