An App I Really Think You’ll Want

Only ten years ago the sentence, “I want to ask the hotel for their brisket recipe,” would have condemned me to a night of tracking their phone number through information, then phoning the hotel for their address, typing a nice note, arguing with my wife about why I wasn’t doing the dishes, scavenging around for an envelope, remembering to buy a stamp the following day and, finally, posting the thing.

Instead, I simply pulled out my phone, Googled, hit contact, typed a few sentences and pressed send. Done.

I love we can do this! I love being here & now in this day & age with all the tech smarts at our disposal, not only for brisket recipes, but for other important stuff too.

It wasn’t so long ago the first thing you did when someone in your house had a fever or the vomits was to call your Mum, or anyone in your circle of friends with any sort of medical background – nurse, doctor’s receptionist, hypochondriac, vet – for their advice on whether you needed to head to the emergency.

Then we got Google.

I won’t ask for a show of hands on whether you’ve actually Googled symptoms because A. I can’t see you, and B. we both know you have.

The trouble with Googling, though, is you have to sort through a lot of chaff because you don’t really know how reliable the author of any particular piece is. Even the legit looking sites can be full of bias and opinion, rather than based on research and facts.

Which brings us to this app called healthdirect. Instead of searching through Google results, a simple app on your phone can give you trusted health information and advice.

I’ve been testing it out for a couple of weeks now to see how it performs. One of the first things I did was to put in Tracey’s symptoms from the night her aneurism ruptured. As you might recall, we initially went to the emergency but then went home when they were busy. I suspect if we’d had this on our phone we wouldn’t have been so quick to assume it was nothing and leave.

This app is fantastic. Genuinely. It’s just an awesomely simple bit of medical tech-help I think everyone should have on their phone, which is why I agreed to promote it.

Because sure, this is a sponsored post and they expect me to write nice things, but I’ve already sent a message to members of my extended family, including my daughter and her new bub, to download the healthdirect app (available for both Apple and Android) to their phones.

Not only does it give you advice on when to ask for professional medical assistance, there’s even a map giving directions to the nearest hospitals, should you need it. It also comes up with sections entitled Additional  Care and Keep Watch For once you’ve put in your symptoms, so you’re better informed and have an idea what to do.

Especially if, when someone in your house starts to look a bit pale, you usually Google their symptoms – and we’ve already established by a theoretical, or at least largely assumptive, show of hands, that’s everyone.

Because at the end of the day all any of us wants is to take the best care we can of our loved ones and, if the chance arrives, to track down a really good brisket recipe.

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“Raising a family on little more than laughs.”