Mayo Clinic starts to offer health info on cell phones

The service isn't a substitute for calling 911.
MINNEAPOLIS-ST. PAUL STAR TRIBUNE
Nagging headache? Neck pain? Now you can check your symptoms along with stock prices on your cell phone.
The Mayo Clinic is rolling out a health information service that soon will be available via most major cell-phone carriers. For 2.99 a month, subscribers who sign up for Mayo Clinic InTouch can get first-aid tips, watch health videos or find the closest emergency room on their cell-phone screens.
Mayo is taking its gold-plated name into an increasingly crowded field. In the past few years, the cell phone has become a conduit for a growing array of information from weather forecasts to sports scores and stock prices to even finding the closest apartments for rent. At Sprint Nextel, for example, such data services contribute about 10 of the average customer's 60 to 65 monthly bill.
While Mayo is not the first to offer health information on cell phones, it's the highest-profile player to do so. It's a way to spread around content that's already available for free on its popular MayoClinic.com consumer Web site.
"It's for people who need to know out in the field [such as]: 'Is this symptom serious enough to interrupt my vacation?'" said Dr. Roger Harms, medical editor-in-chief for MayoClinic.com.
What it is
Mayo Clinic InTouch is a medical information service, not a substitute for 911. It will be available to about 180 million subscribers of Sprint Nextel, Cingular Wireless (now AT & amp;T), Verizon Wireless and Alltel Wireless who choose to sign up, provided their telephones have Web capability. Sprint was to start offering the service at the end of last week, and other carriers within two weeks, said Jessica Myers, a spokeswoman for Garmin Ltd.; its subsidiary, Digital Cyclone Inc., will provide the software.
So-called wireless-data revenue in the United States were 6.5 billion for the first six months of 2006, up from 3.8 billion in the first half of 2005, according to CTIA, a wireless-industry group.
The cell-phone services capitalize on two big strengths: the ability to reach users in real time and the ability to map their location.
Sprint, for example, has a service called myfoodPhone, which lets users snap a picture of a meal before eating it. A nutritionist later sends feedback -- example, admonitions to eat more green leafy vegetables. Bones In Motion, another Sprint offering, can track your workout, mapping your route and telling you how long and how fast you ran, biked or skated, and at what incline. Each service costs 10 a month.