Consumers voted MyHumana Mobile App, over Apple’s Siri, Google, Amazon and other mobile technology applications, as their favorite smart phone or tablet app. The honor, which MyHumana Mobile won for the second consecutive year, was sponsored by the 11th annual American Business Awards.

MyHumana Mobile App is available as a free download for all Apple and Android smart phones and tablets. It brings Humana members the most personalized and relevant self-service tools and resources whenever and wherever they need it.

Humana’s leadership and innovation in the mobile technology space is responsive to increasing consumer demand. More than half of the U.S. population have smart phones and spend about two hours using their device each day. Humana members use MyHumana Mobile app to set up daily medication text reminders, to refill their RightSource prescriptions, find nearby urgent-care centers and providers, directly fax their ID card data to their doctor and pharmacist, check the balance in their Health Savings Account, and find a lower-cost alternative to a prescription your physician recommends. During the past 12 months, app downloads and mobile visitors have both nearly tripled.

The “People’s Choice” Award is only one of several recent honors MyHumana Mobile App has earned. The tool also won the Bronze Award in the Utilities/Services category of the 2012 American Business Awards. In an independent study just released by MyPrivateBanking Research, Humana was evaluated against 30 international health plans and ranked #1 for its app strategy.

Telemedicine is a growing health care trend, connecting chronically ill patients directly with health care and medical professionals, including nurses, physicians and care managers, via the phone, Internet, and in some cases, Web-based video. Humana Cares, the St. Petersburg-based national complex and chronic care division of Humana, is currently engaged in a national telehealth pilot, employing these technologies to remotely monitor the weight, blood pressure and other key vitals of some 1,000 Humana Medicare congestive heart-failure members across the country.

Wiser With Age?

A recent study from Humana and Reader’s Digest has found a number of interesting differences in how America’s generations view their health and well-being. In fact, 64 percent of older Americans (age 65 and older) say having “good health” is most important to them, even more than a close knit family or financial security – while 69 percent of younger Americans (age 64 and younger) say having a close-knit family is most important to them.

The nationwide survey of 1,000 people examined health behaviors and opinions across age groups in America and found a number of other key differences. For example, 40 percent of older adults equate “good health” with being happy, while 46 percent of young Americans define “good health” as being in better shape.

The infographic below highlights the differences in how younger and older people think about their health.

If you don’t have a health club membership, you might move more if you have a videogame system at home like a Wii, Playstation Move or Microsoft’s Kinect. Read how post 50s use video games to exercise

But will you get as good a workout? That’s the subject of a study called “Is Playing Exergames Really Exercising? A Meta-Analysis of Energy Expenditure in Active Video Games,” by Wei Peng, Jih-Hsuan Lin, and Julia Crouse (Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, November 2011).

Physicians believe that unmet social needs are directly leading to worse health outcomes for Americans, according to results published in the RWJF Physician's Survey "Health Cares Blind Side: The Overlooked Connection Between Social Needs and Good Health." Medical care alone cannot help people achieve good health if they do not have enough to eat or a safe place to live. The survey found that 76 percent of physicians wish the U.S. health care system would pay to connect patients with services that can address their unmet social needs.

A Humana survey found that improving family connections can improve a patient’s health, whether that connection comes in person or through technology.