WebMD Launches Unique New Mobile App for Those Living With Chronic Pain

NEW YORK, Sept. 17, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- WebMD Health Corp. (NASDAQ: WBMD), the leading source of health information, today announced its new WebMD Pain Coach™ for iPhone, a unique free mobile application for consumers and patients living with chronic pain. As the leader in mobile health, WebMD provides trusted health information anytime and anywhere with its mobile web and applications for consumers and physicians. The new WebMD Pain Coach™ app builds on WebMD's market-leading mobile applications through a holistic approach that helps users create a balanced lifestyle.

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WebMD's new app is a mobile companion to coach consumers through daily health and wellness choices so that they can better manage their pain while living a healthy life. It offers patients a personalized experience by delivering daily physician-reviewed tips about managing their specific condition(s) to their mobile device. With the app, WebMD helps consumers take control of their lifestyle choices by enabling them to easily review their pain patterns so they can understand triggers, set goals and share progress with their physician.

"WebMD recognized that many who suffer from chronic pain have more than one condition, which is why WebMD's Pain Coach™ uniquely enables tracking of multiple chronic pain conditions all within one app. With WebMD's Pain Coach™, users can track and view symptoms, triggers, treatments and goals on a daily basis, further monitoring progression," said Dr. Michael Smith, Chief Medical Editor at WebMD. "WebMD Pain Coach™ is also a portable reminder and checklist for patients to reference when communicating with their physician at the point of care, enhancing patient-physician communications to help with health decisions and treatments."

According to the Institute of Medicine of The National Academies, there are over 100 million Americans suffering from a chronic pain condition. WebMD Pain Coach™ provides tools and resources to help those suffering from chronic back pain, neck pain, nerve pain, fibromyalgia, migraine, osteoarthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis, with customized information based on their condition, treatments and lifestyle.  

In recent studies conducted by WebMD of its leading consumer and physician communities, both groups expressed interest in the ability to track pain through a mobile device to enhance patient-physician communication at the point of care. In a recent survey* of chronic pain sufferers who visit WebMD through a mobile device, 89 percent would use a mobile pain diary through a smartphone app at least weekly and 70 percent would be likely to use an app which featured relevant WebMD condition-focused content to help better manage and track pain.

Other key survey findings include:

• Approximately 40 percent of respondents felt very strongly that this type of application would improve discussions with their physician.
• Over 50 percent of respondents suffer from frequent or recurring pain and are actively treating their pain with guidance from a physician; 83 percent of respondents see a doctor; 50 percent treat pain with Rx medication; and 38 percent treat pain with OTC medication.

The physician survey** also found:

• 92 percent of respondents would prefer if their patients had an easy way to track symptoms between visits, with 65 percent noting a mobile app could allow their patients to easily track their chronic pain intensity and share that information during visits.

Similar to WebMD's other leading health apps, WebMD Pain Coach™ provides contextual advertisements for the engaged user with ad experiences that are woven into the fabric of the app.   

WebMD Pain Coach™ features include:

Journal: The journal puts consumers in control of their lifestyle choices, allowing them to see patterns, discover potential triggers, show tangible progress through goal setting, share progress with their physician, and track to gain a measure of control.

Goals:  Consumers are able to browse and select physician-reviewed goals from five lifestyle categories related to their pain condition(s):  food, rest, exercise, mood, and treatments, or create their own goals. Each related tip can be viewed before selecting a goal, and the goal duration can be set from one day to one year. 

Tips:  Tips are delivered daily and provide consumers with a highly personalized experience to help them meet their specific goals. Tips are categorized by food, rest, exercise, mood and treatments and are physician-reviewed.

Library: The Library contains WebMD's trusted physician-reviewed content relevant to the patient's condition(s) and pain management. The Library contains hundreds of articles, videos, slideshows and quizzes, all organized within categories including: Living Better with Chronic Pain, Pain Management Techniques, Treatment & Care for Chronic Pain, and Understanding Chronic Pain.

WebMD Pain Coach™ is available for free from the App Store for the iPhone and iPod Touch or at http://itunes.com/apps/webmdpaincoach.  Detailed information on the app is available at http://www.webmd.com/webmdpaincoachapp.

*WebMD Mobile Survey Methodology: 531 people responded to a WebMD survey targeting chronic pain users conducted in May-June 2011 on WebMD's mobile web and iPhone/Android apps.

**Medscape Survey Methodology: 131 physicians responded to a Medscape Poll targeting physicians who treat patients suffering from chronic pain. It was conducted from June 3-June 11, 2012, online in Medscape's Physician Connect Community.

About WebMD

WebMD Health Corp. (NASDAQ: WBMD) is the leading provider of health information services, serving consumers, physicians, healthcare professionals, employers, and health plans through our public and private online portals, mobile platforms and health-focused publications.

The WebMD Health Network includes WebMD Health, Medscape, MedicineNet, emedicineHealth, RxList, theheart.org, Medscape Education and other owned WebMD sites.

All statements contained in this press release, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements, including those regarding: our expectations concerning market opportunities and our ability to capitalize on them; and the benefits expected from new products or services. These statements speak only as of the date of this press release and are based on our current plans and expectations, and they involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual future events or results to be different than those described in or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include those relating to: market acceptance of our products and services; relationships with customers and strategic partners; and changes in economic, political or regulatory conditions or other trends affecting the healthcare, Internet and information technology industries. Further information about these matters can be found in our Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

SOURCE WebMD Health Corp.