REACH HPI's Becky White and James White will be presenting a workshop at the 2016 Australian Health Promotion Association Conference, on 19 June, in Perth. The workshop, titled Mobile Technology in Health Promotion, will present a broad overview of the app development process, from idea
to finished product, and beyond. Read More...

Tags: Mobile technology, Conferences, Education and Training, Health promotion

Over the past year, REACH HPI has been working in partnership with Telethon Kids Institute and Edith Cowan University to create a mobile app that forms the centrepiece of the CyberSavvy school initiative. This project is focussed on helping young people to be safe online, and to be aware of the consequences of social image sharing. It also provides resources, information and support contacts. The app, called ImageUp, is available now.

Read more about the CyberSavvy project
Read more about the ImageUp app
Download ImageUp for iOS

Tags: Online safety, Young people, Education and Training, Mobile technology, Telethon Kids Institute, Edith Cowan University

This week REACH HPI's designer-in-chief James White presented at the YOW! West developer conference in Perth. His session, Design 101 for programmers presented a series of simple tips for improving mobile and web design, for those without a strong design background. The session was well-attended and well-received, and the video will soon be available for viewing.

Tags: Design, Conferences, Mobile technology

We're delighted to announce that Feed Safe is now available for Android devices. This is long overdue; Feed Safe has been a very popular service for breastfeeding mothers in the two years since it was released, and REACH HPI has received over 800 emails from women across Australia, enquiring about Android availability. Feed Safe for Android was released on April 7, and we've already received nearly fifty messages from users, along these lines: Read More...

Tags: Breastfeeding, Mobile technology, Australian Breastfeeding Association, Curtin University

AODconnect is a mobile app providing a directory of Australian providers of culturally appropriate AOD (alcohol and other drug) services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Built by REACH HPI for the Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet, the app was made available for iOS devices in May 2015, and now indexes over 250 Australian service providers. In the latter part of 2015 REACH HPI was engaged with building a native Android version of AODconnect, and this version is now available for download from Google Play.

Download AODconnect for Android (Australia only)
Download AODconnect for iOS (Australia only)
Read more about the project

Tags: Mobile technology, Alcohol, AOD, Health promotion, Collaboration

Feed Safe, REACH HPI's app that assists breastfeeding mothers to make the best decisions about alcohol consumption, is now available in New Zealand. Released in collaboration with WellSouth Primary Health Network, the app contains official recommendations from the NZ Ministry of Health, as well as local contact details for breastfeeding information and support services.

Meanwhile, in Australia, Feed Safe has now been downloaded more than 50,000 times, and has been used more than half a million times, since its launch in 2014.

Download Feed Safe (NZ App Store)
Download Feed Safe (Australian App Store)

Tags: Breastfeeding, Mobile technology

REACH HPI, in collaboration with Matthew Govorko, an asbestos researcher at Curtin University, will be presenting at the annual conference of the Australian Institute of Occupational Hygienists (AIOH), 5 December 2015, at Crown Perth Convention Centre. The half-day continuing education session is aimed at non-technical people considering the development of apps aimed at risk communication, guiding and improving the practice of occupational hygienists, assisting with home or workplace hazard identification, or any other field of occupational hygiene.

Tags: Mobile technology, OccupationalHygiene, Education and Training, Curtin University

Late last year the Young and Well CRC, and Queensland University of Technology (QUT) released a new tool for assessing the quality of mobile health applications. The tool was informed by research about assessing web and app quality and is comprehensive in coverage. With a real need to improve evaluation and validation of mobile apps in public health, this new tool is a welcome contribution.

Tags: Mobile technology, Evaluation

REACH HPI's James White recently presented at the 2015 /dev/world conference in Melbourne. /dev/world is Australia's longest running developer conference; this was James' fifth year attending, and second year presenting. Entitled "Paint all the code", James' presentation demonstrated a new technique for creating images in code, rather than using static image files, an approach that can potentially make apps smaller to download, quicker, and more adaptable to a range of devices and screen sizes. For anyone interested in diving into the intricacies of CoreGraphics image generation, James' presentation is available for viewing.

Tags: Mobile technology, Conferences

REACH HPI's James White was recently invited to present at the Perth Science Festival, on the subjects of mobile apps and science. With an audience comprising families and many budding mini-scientists, James thought he'd be spared the rigorous question times that feature in regular academic presentations. However, he was put through the wringer with a number of interesting, and surprisingly challenging questions from the children and parents in attendance. We're big supporters of initiatives like the Science Festival, and its primary contributor, Scitech, in promoting science and technology to curious young minds.

Tags: Mobile technology

Australians are now accessing the internet more from smartphones than they are from their PCs. According to the June Nelisen Australian Online Landscape Review, smartphones accounted for 47%of average daily unique browsers, with Desktop computers contributing just 36%.

Tags: Mobile technology

For the second year running James White has been awarded an Apple scholarship to attend the World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco. The conference, which this year runs between 8-12 June, brings together 5000 developers from around the world to learn, share and network. “Apple has recently been particularly active in the health space, with the release of HealthKit for health focussed-apps, ResearchKit for medical research, and the strongly health-focussed Apple Watch” James said. “I fully expect to hear about some exciting developments in this area, and I’m looking forward to the chance to again ask questions of the very developers and product managers who bring these products and services to us.” Read More...

Tags: Mobile technology, WWDC, ResearchKit, Scholarships, HealthKit

In November 2014 the Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet approached Reach HPI to consult on a mobile app. The goal was to take their extensive database of Australian providers of culturally appropriate AOD (alcohol and other drug) services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and make it highly accessible for mobile users. The brief was to create a fast, responsive and easy to use app, which made it simple to hone in on services that were relevant to the user’s location and specific needs. Many community health professionals operate in remote places with patchy data connections, so the app needed to work well in these conditions, or even with no connection at all. The result, released today, is AODconnect. This app currently indexes around 250 service providers, and allows users to filter services by location, focus, or types of services offered. Read More...

Tags: Mobile technology, Alcohol, AOD, Collaboration, Edith Cowan University

Apple today announced a new framework called ResearchKit. Built in collaboration with more than a dozen leading medical institutions and foundations including Stanford Medicine, Oxford University, Massachusetts Hospital and the American Heart Foundation, the stated goal of ResearchKit is to make it easy for health and medical researchers to gather data on a scale never before possible, whilst upholding established best practice in ethics and informed consent. Critically, Apple has announced that this framework will be open source, meaning that it can potentially be applied well beyond the Apple platform and device ecosystem. Read More...

Tags: Research, Data

Reach HPI has been selected to develop a new mobile application for the Parent Infant Feeding Initiative, a Healthway funded research project based at Curtin University. The app, which will be developed for both iOS and Android devices, will aim to educate new fathers about the importance of breastfeeding, and the valuable role they play in supporting their breastfeeding partners. It will be evaluated over the course of 18 months, in one of the largest studies of its kind ever conducted.

Read more about the project

Tags: Mobile technology, Breastfeeding, Research, Curtin University, Health promotion

Reach HPI is happy to announce a partnership with Edith Cowan University and the Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet project to develop a new mobile application for providers of AOD (alcohol and other drug) services for Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander people. The app is scheduled for release in early 2015 and will provide an access point for a range of services across the country. “The Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet has been a valuable tool for organisations providing services in this important area,” said James White, who will be developing the app. “We’re very proud to have been chosen to collaborate on this next stage of the project, where we will be making this wealth of information readily accessible via mobile.”

Tags: Mobile technology, Alcohol, Indigenous, Health promotion, Edith Cowan University

Feed Safe, REACH HPI’s collaboration with the Australian Breastfeeding Association and Curtin University, has now been downloaded by over 20,000 Australian women in the nine months since it was released. “The response has been incredible,” said Becky White, who conceived the idea while breastfeeding her first child. “The best thing is the many emails we get from users, thanking us for the app, and telling us how they now feel more confident they’re making the right decisions.”

Download Feed Safe from the App Store (Australia only)
Visit the Feed Safe website
Read about the Feed Safe project

Tags: Breastfeeding, Mobile technology, Innovation, Public health

James White recently returned from Malaga, in the south of Spain, where he presented his doctoral research at the conference Medicine 2.0: Social Media, Mobile Apps, and Internet/Web 2.0 in Health, Medicine and Biomedical Research. This is the annual conference of the Journal of Medical Internet Research, the foremost academic journal in the field of digital health. Read More...

Tags: Conferences, Mobile technology, Innovation

Health promotion works best when it’s done in partnership. Every individual and organisation has unique skills, reach and expertise. While this is important for any health promotion initiative, we think that it’s vital in health software development and evaluation.

The best outcomes happen when developers, designers and other technical professionals are included in a multidisciplinary team as early as possible in the project development process. Read More...

Tags: Collaboration, Funding

The Ebola outbreak is dominating the news this month and amongst all the terrible stories, we read this interesting piece about how mHealth could be a key facilitator in reducing the spread of the virus. Take a look at this balanced article about how mobiles can be used for rapid dissemination of information in developing countries when time is of the essence.

Tags: mHealth, Disease

It’s great to see health promotion apps among the finalists of the 2014 Australian Mobile & App Design Awards. We love the Beyond Blue ‘Check in’ app and the VicHealth Better Health Channel app. There are some interesting, innovative apps in the shortlist, which is well worth a look.

Tags: Mobile technology

Health promotion has always faced competition from bigger, louder and much more highly funded organisations. This month we saw news that McDonalds is trialling home delivery and launching their new app to enable people to order their food before they get to the store. Utilising games, big budgets and savvy marketing, apps such as these can undermine healthy lifestyle initiatives by making the unhealthy choice the easy choice. Here’s the article, and here’s an interesting response from LiveLighter.

Tags: Nutrition

James White will be presenting at this year’s /dev/world conference in Melbourne, from September 29-30. Now in its seventh year, /dev/world is Australia’s oldest Mac and iOS developer conference, and is attended by some of Australia and New Zealand’s best mobile and desktop application developers. James has attended /dev/world on three previous occasions, but this will be his first time as a presenter. His session will cover analytics and evaluation of mobile apps.

Tags: Conferences, Mobile technology, Innovation

Becky White has been awarded the 2014 Parent Infant Feeding Initiative (PIFI) Scholarship, funded by Healthway and Curtin University’s School of Public Health. Becky will shortly begin a PhD project investigating the impact of partner attitudes on breastfeeding. As part of her project, Becky will be investigating how mobile technology can be used to impact on a health promotion initiative.  Read More...

Tags: Scholarships, Breastfeeding, Mobile technology, Research

James White has been invited to present at the conference Medicine 2.0: Social Media, Mobile Apps, and Internet/Web 2.0 in Health, Medicine and Biomedical Research. The conference will take place from 9-10 October 2014 in Malaga, Spain, and will bring together the world’s premier digital health practitioners.
Read More...

Tags: Conferences, Mobile technology, Innovation

James White has been awarded an Apple scholarship to attend the Worldwide Developers’ Conference (WWDC), in San Francisco, from 2-6 June 2014. WWDC is an annual conference attracting more than 5000 iOS and Mac developers from around the world. With tickets in high demand, Apple ensures that talented student developers have an opportunity to attend by awarding 200 scholarships each year. James said, “Attending WWDC is a wonderful opportunity to network with other developers and to receive training and advice from Apple’s best engineers. To receive this scholarship is really gratifying, and I intend to make the most of every opportunity that presents itself.” Read Curtin University’s article about this award.

Tags: Conferences, Mobile technology, Scholarships

REACH HPI’s Becky and James White presented a half-day satellite workshop at the 2014 symposium of the WA Sexual Health and Blood-borne Virus Applied Research and Evaluation Network (SiREN). More than 50 participants attended, from a diverse range of backgrounds and disciplines, creating a fascinating forum for discussing innovations in sexual health promotion. Read More...

Tags: Sexual health, Social media, Mobile technology, Education and Training, Conferences

In just its first week of availability, Feed Safe was downloaded by thousands of women across Australia. It spent several days as the second most downloaded free health and fitness app in the country. The app has also generated a lot of interest in both traditional and social media, having been discussed in a number of radio interviews, and featured in a prominent article in the West Australian newspaper. “We’ve received so much positive feedback from users,” said Reach HPI’s Becky White, who has received nearly 200 emails from users and community members since the app’s launch. “Users are telling us they love the app’s simplicity and clarity. We’re thrilled to have been involved in producing a resource that Australian women find so useful.”

Tags: Breastfeeding, Mobile technology

Reach HPI today released Feed Safe, a new mobile application built in collaboration with the Australian Breastfeeding Association (ABA) and Curtin University. Feed Safe addresses the issue of alcohol consumption during breastfeeding, and builds on the work of Curtin’s Dr Roslyn Giglia who, together with the ABA, published the brochure Breastfeeding and alcohol: A guide for mothers. Dr Giglia’s work has been incorporated into the NHMRC’s guidelines for alcohol consumption while breastfeeding, and these guidelines form the basis of the Feed Safe app. The project, which included evaluation of the app with around thirty participants, was funded by a Healthway project grant. Read More...

Tags: Breastfeeding, Mobile technology

REACH HPI’s Becky White has joined the committee for the West Australian branch of the Australian Health Promotion Association (AHPA). AHPA is the peak health promotion body in WA. “I’m looking forward to being involved with a range of activities and strategies to help with health promotion within WA, and Australia,” Becky said.

Tags: Australian Health Promotion Association

REACH HPI will be presenting a half day satellite workshop at the upcoming SiREN sexual health symposium in Perth. The theme for the symposium is ‘Building the foundations for innovation’, and the workshop will cover the use of social media and mobile technology in sexual health promotion, including regulations, ethics, privacy and evaluation. Read More...

Tags: Sexual health, Social media, Mobile technology, Conferences, Education and Training

In a big win for mobile health, the My QuitBuddy app (available on both the App Store and on Google Play) was recently awarded the best mobile app in the government services category, by the Australian Mobile Awards. The app, developed by the Australian National Preventative Health Agency, has been downloaded nearly a quarter of a million times to date. My Quit Buddy helps Australians to quit smoking, and the focus on evaluation is adding to the evidence for the use of this medium in achieving behaviour change within the population. Read more about the app, and its award.

Tags: Mobile technology, Smoking cessation

REACH HPI’s James White recently participated in the first Health Innovation Masterclass, hosted by the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. This two-day event brought together medical practitioners, researchers, entrepreneurs and software developers from Australia, Malaysia and Singapore, to discuss and develop innovative health ideas. Projects covered a diverse array of fields, including obesity, pain management, medical side-effect tracing, accreditation and diabetes management. Read More...

Tags: Innovation, Public health

Something we often hear is “There are already so many apps. Why do we need more?” We’d say that, while we don’t necessarily need more health apps, we certainly need better ones. This theme was examined recently on the excellent online scientific forum The Conversation. Many people will not know that while the Therapeutic Goods Administration has guidelines for certain medical apps, there is currently still no regulatory process for non-medical “health” apps. Read More...

Tags: Mobile technology, Regulation

Congratulations to Casiana Blanca Villarino, winner of the 2013 Curtin University Three Minute Thesis competition. Casiana presented on a novel approach to creating high-fibre, high-protein bread using lupins, and will represent Curtin later this month at the national finals in Sydney.

School of Public Health doctoral students have now won the Curtin competition two years in a row – REACH HPI’s own James White was selected as the 2012 winner. Clearly health research is at the forefront of innovation, at least in Western Australia! Read about James’ experience at the 2012 national finals here.

Tags: Innovation, Public health

Still on the GovHack theme, Adelaide health promotion technology agency Zockmelon entered the competition with an overt health promotion goal: to help people discover outdoor recreation opportunities in their local communities, assisting them to stay active without relying on gyms or organised sport. Their app, LocalActive, was awarded the Safe Communities, Healthy Neighbourhoods prize. Zockmelon’s Kristy Schirmer wrote this interesting piece on what health promoters can learn from the GovHack model.

Tags: Mobile technology, Innovation, GovHack

REACH HPI’s James White recently participated in the GovHack event. 1000 people in eight Australian cities spent a weekend competing to find novel uses for Government data sources. James’ team built a mobile application called Advintage, which draws on the National Library’s Trove database. Trove is a massive online collection scanned newspaper and magazine pages spanning more than a century, and Advintage enables users to easily explore the millions of advertisements it contains. Advintage was awarded the national Trove Developers’ Prize, as well as the Perth Digital Humanities Prize. Read More...

Tags: Mobile technology, Innovation, GovHack

REACH HPI has been awarded a Healthway Project Grant for the project Harnessing mobile technology to promote safer alcohol consumption behaviour during lactation. This is a collaborative project with the Australian Breastfeeding Association and Curtin University, and will see a new mobile app developed to assist breastfeeding mothers in making more informed decisions about alcohol consumption. Reach HPI’s Becky White said, “As a mother who only recently finished breastfeeding, I’m very aware of the importance of good information for mothers. This project will have real benefits for mothers who can often find this issue confusing.” Curtin University’s Dr Roslyn Giglia, upon whose research this project is based, said, “This is a great opportunity to provide evidence-based information to breastfeeding mothers via a unique user friendly medium.”

Tags: Breastfeeding, Innovation, Mobile technology

There are many types of health apps available across the range of mobile platforms. While there has long been strong interest in fitness-related apps, the most recent Citrix Bytemobile Mobile analytics report demonstrates that pregnancy-related apps are now the most downloaded health apps across all the major platforms. Data collected worldwide show that, for those who have one or more health-related apps on their device, 47% use a pregnancy related app, compared to 39% for fitness apps. Read More...

Tags: Innovation, Mobile technology, Pregnancy

Two prominent US public health organisations think they may be. The National Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention and the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have jointly announced a project proposal to collect population health data via smartphones and investigate if it will help make health data quicker and easier to collect, and more accessible to the community. Read More...

Tags: Public health, Mobile technology, Innovation

REACH HPI’s James White competed in the recent Perth Startup Weekend. This event sees competing groups take a tech-focused business idea from concept to prototype over the course of 56 hours. While the project James worked on wasn’t health-related, he noted that two of the pitched ideas were related to mental health. “There’s a lot of interest in the way mobile technology can deliver messages and connect people - users to service providers, and users to users,” James said. “This creates real opportunities in fields such as mental health, where these connections are so important.” Read More...

Tags: Innovation, Mobile technology, Mental health

We’re the first to appreciate an innovative app which draws attention to an important health issue, and if it uses a bit of humour to do so, that’s even better. The 'Your Man Reminder' app, released by the Canadian breast cancer charity Rethink, combines clever marketing with some fetching gentlemen to get women talking about breast awareness. You can watch the video here, and download the app from the App Store or Google Play.

Tags: Innovation, Mobile technology, Population screening

Becky White has recently been appointed as a community representative for the City of Wanneroo's Healthy Communities Steering Group. Becky said, "I think it's really important to support health promotion initiatives in the communities we live in and this program is delivering some great benefits for local residents."

Tags: Community development, Capacity building

REACH HPI has released ScreenKeeper, a free mobile app for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. ScreenKeeper enables users to keep track of important cancer screens, including pap smears, mammograms, bowel screens and prostate examinations.

• Download ScreenKeeper from the App Store
• Visit the ScreenKeeper website

Tags: Chronic disease, Population screening, Mobile technology

As the healthcare industry becomes increasingly aware of the opportunities and benefits of information technology, more and more service providers are being faced with the difficult task of commissioning development work and making sense of different approaches and estimates. REACH HPI's James White was recently asked to contribute an editorial piece to a forthcoming special addition of the Australasian Medical Journal, focussing on innovation and new technology. His paper provides practical advice for health service providers commissioning mobile software, with particular emphasis on the essential characteristics of mobile applications and different approaches to development. Read More...

Tags: Publications, Mobile technology

We’re proud of our association with Curtin University, which has a strong emphasis on innovation and embracing change. This emphasis is the focus of a new set of television commercials promoting the university. Watch closely for a fleeting cameo from REACH HPI’s resident publicity hog.

Tags: Innovation, Curtin University

REACH HPI’s James White was recently awarded the Australian Postgraduate Award (APA) and Curtin Research Scholarship (CRS). These will enable James to progress his doctoral project, An electronic, virtual community intervention to increase fish consumption.

Tags: Research, Scholarships, Doctoral project, Fish consumption and health, Chronic disease

REACH HPI's James White attended the 2012 Health Informatics Conference in Sydney, during which he presented as part of a panel on the subject of innovation in primary care. The session included a group discussion between clinicians, regulatory agents, innovators, and academics from each Australian state. The themes from this session were collated and discussed in a paper entitled "Harnessing information technology to innovate in primary care", which was recently accepted for publication in the British journal Quality in Primary Care. Read More...

Tags: Publications, Primary care, Innovation