Take Heart app helps Allina patients take heart health into their own hands

Navigating a new medical diagnosis can be overwhelming for anyone. Allina Health’s Minneapolis Heart Institute launched a new tool to make often confusing and scary procedures easier on their patients.

The goal of its new Take Heart app is to take off some of pressure put on patients to understand complex medical terminology and instructions. The app puts all must-know information at patients’ fingertips.

Dr. Steven Bradley is a cardiologist at Allina Heart Institute and one of the doctors who helped launch the Take Heart app.

"We’re providing a direct link to an application that embeds all that information on their phone and then provides them reminders timed by when they need to do that relative to the procedure,” Bradley said.

He and his team saw a need. He said Americans have access to technology that helps them in many aspects of their daily lives, but there are not many applications that help patients navigate health.

This app stores patients’ health information on their phones to help walk them through their procedures.

“It pops ups and reminds them because of these medications and the procedure they’re about to have that they need to hold that medication at this time or for a lot of procedures we need to make sure that they haven’t had anything to eat or drink for a certain period of time before the procedure, so again, it pops up and reminds them,” Bradley said.

The app has links to information on what to expect before, during and after a procedure and answers commonly asked questions.

Bradley said he hopes it helps his patients better understand what’s happening with their health while easing the stress, so they can focus on staying healthy.