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Figure 1 App Allows Medical Professionals To Share Photos, Information To Help Patients

BOSTON (CBS) -- One of the co-founders of Figure 1, a helpful photo-sharing app that allows medical experts to share images and information to assist patients.

Dr. Joshua Landy, co-founder of the free-to-use app, provided an overview of the app.

"A behavior that I had noticed in my own practice as an intensive care physician, but also as one of the co-founders of Figure 1 is the use of the phrase 'I'm just a nurse, but...'," he says. "This is something you hear from nursing professionals both in real life and in the app when they offer their opinion or the perspective on the case."

He says this common occurrence is "problematic because it diminishes the type of contribution that can be made by nurses."

"I work closely with a team of nurses who make life-saving contributions to every patient's care every single day," Landy says. "To say you are 'just a nurse,' I don't think that is a fair way to think of your contribution if you are a nurse."

Landy acknowledges that nurses spend more with patients than doctors.

"Indeed that is true," he says. "We have built a bot, a specialized piece of software, that will respond to anyone who uses the the phrase 'I'm just a nurse' and reminds them that indeed they are such a valuable member of the healthcare community and that medicine could not function without a nurse."

The doctor believes that nurses today probably have more responsibilities than they did a few decades ago.

"We are seeing more and more healthcare being delivered by what I would say as 'non-physicians' these days that a lot of people are getting some of their primary and even their specialty medical services from nurses, nurse practitioners or clinical nurse specialists," Landy said.

For more information, visit the Figure 1 website.

WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Diane Stern reports

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