The New York-based Mount Sinai Medical Center has adopted an enterprise-grade mobile care-coordination mobile app which employs a special HIPAA-secure group text messaging system that improves communication between team members who coordinate care of patients with complex medical conditions.

The app, called Cureatr, was designed by a resident at the Mount Sinai Hospital, Joseph Mayer, M.D. Mount Sinai has signed a multi-year contract to roll out the app to Mount Sinai clinicians.

Mayer developed the app to solve the day-to-day challenges he and his colleagues experienced while treating patients, including reaching the right care-team member at the right time and communicating with him or her effectively, and navigating the many complex day-to-day clinical workflows at a hospital such as Mount Sinai.  “Outside of the electronic medical record (EMR) system, physicians, nurses and other care team members have no mobile tools built specifically for their care coordination challenges,” Mayer said in a statement.

The cloud-based mobile app, designed for use with iPhones, Androids, tablets and other hand-held devices, was pilot-tested for months by Mount Sinai clinicians in a pilot program at the hospital, and is also used at The Institute for Family Health (IFH), a Mount Sinai affiliate. Because Cureatr enables both intra- and inter-institutional communication, users at affiliates such as IFH and large group practices are able to securely message Mount Sinai practitioners for referral and follow-up care.

“Mount Sinai is the first major academic medical center to adopt Cureatr,” Bruce J. Darrow, M.D., Chief Medical Information Officer (CMIO) of The Mount Sinai Medical Center, said in a statment.  “The adoption of the Cureatr app demonstrates our commitment to using new health-information technology to improve quality and coordination of care.”