Sarah Royan is head Athletic Trainer for Hawken school. It's her job to monitor and track the health of every athlete in every sport. Now she uses an app to do that from the sidelines.
"We don't have to wait and track injuries when we get back into our office or with paper and pencil we can just track it right here," Royan says.
The app is called Healthy Roster developed by a Columbus sports medicine technology start up. In just two years the app is now being used in 26 states.
Lake Health System and University Hospitals are among the medical centers that utilize it with their Athletic Trainers. University Hospitals has it in 40 schools serving 13,000 athletes.
Dr. James Voos is UH Division Chief for Sports Medicine. He likes that the app gets everyone in the loop instantly from medical teams, to coaches and parents.
When a parent downloads the app and signs up, they are instantly alerted on their phone if their child is injured during a game or practice. They can either call or text the AT right away or do teleconferencing from home to update the medical team on recovery and treatment. Every detail of the injury is added to the electronic health medical record in the app.
"What sport they're playing what time of day is it, was it at practice or during a game was it on grass or turf was it raining or was it dry," Dr. Voos says.
He wanted High School athletes to benefit from technology already being used by the pros. Because in a few years that data that's being collected and stored can then be analyzed to look for injury trends and eventually revolution the safety of the game.
"It provides great data for safety and research and advancing our mission of not just taking care of the athletes but also making those policy changes to help every athlete play in a safer environment," Dr. Voos says.
Because it's an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) that information must be securely stored. That's where MCPc comes in. A secure technology logistics company in Cleveland. They provided the iPads and protect and store the data.
"Not only does it provide the student a kind of a biological passport so that down the road they know that they've improved and recovered and they can see their peer group and how well they have or haven't recovered and then adapt modified training to help them or aid them in their recovery, so theoretically we should be able to produce better safer athletes," says Andy Jones, CEO of MCPc.
Parents, trainers, coaches and athletes can all use the app to track treatment and recovery. Down the road that information may prevent another athlete from experiencing an injury that might be preventable.