From the media attention to the overall holiness, having the Pope visit your town can bring some intriguing benefits.
One of the least obvious bonuses of a Papal visit, however, comes in mHealth, as residents of Philadelphia have discovered.
Jefferson Health, which operates five hospitals and 13 outpatient and urgent care centres, has fast forwarded the introduction of its mobile health app, JeffConnect: On-Demand Virtual Care, which gives citizens access to medical health through their smartphones.
“With all that’s going to be going on, it’s not really reasonable for someone who’s ill to walk five or eight or ten blocks to get to a hospital,“ Judd Hollander, MD, Jefferson Health’s associate dean for strategic health initiatives, told mHealth News. “With this, they don’t have to go to Jefferson; Jefferson can go to them.”
Just another thing to thank the Pope for, then.