What if you could access real-time data analyzing the severity and commonality of various common illnesses like the flu in your own communities?Thanks to Knox Spencer Associates, LLC’s new website and app Doctors Report Illness Tracker, you can – all the way down to your zip code.
Doctors Report is the brainchild of Daniel Shaw, a retired attorney living in Pittsburgh.
Shaw enlisted in the Navy as a young man and thereafter began a career in law, working for the Department of Justice, a firm in Washington, D.C., and then spent 35 years as part of H.J. Heinz’s legal team. It was his extracurricular interests that got him thinking about sickness.
“One thing I was always interested in was the weather,” Shaw said in an interview with Yellowhammer. “I think that’s what got me thinking about the possibility that common illnesses were kind of like the weather.”
The Doctors Report website and app uses the de-identified data that doctors send to their payors, be they insurance companies or government agencies. Doctors must file diagnoses in order to be compensated. Taking those data, the Doctors Report team tracks 15 common illnesses, including the various flues, strep throat, conjunctivitis, common colds, and pneumonia among others, as well as other not-so-common ones such as Lyme Disease and MRSA.
The app – free for download on the App Store, Google Play, and Amazon – is very simple to use. Simply put in your ZIP code, which age group you want to track, and then the illness you want to look at.
The results offer a severity rating for that area, as well as suggestions for avoiding tagged illnesses.
“Most of the data you hear from the CDC is based on a region or state, and obviously our data goes down to your neighborhood, which I think is an additional benefit,” Shaw said.
The app also indicates national trends. According to Doctors Report, the top four illnesses nationally are currently: Influenza (flu), acute sinusitis, bronchitis and bronchiolitis, and Influenza A (flu A).
Other features include News and Forecast/Trends sections, which offer more information about particular illness trends, as well as advice about how to stay well.
Shaw said he sees Doctors Report as something people will want to look at frequently, especially if they have young children or older family members who are prone to catching illnesses.
“When I started this process, we asked people – telling them what the app would do – and we had a significant number that said they would look at the app every day or every couple of days.”
ANTLR Interactive of Pittsburgh designed and developed the website and app. Iron Bridge Corp of Pittsburgh, PA and Nashville, TN is a healthcare technology company and provided the data transformation and delivery that fuels the platform.
The Doctors Report app is available now for download. The website officially launches Wednesday, February 7.
