Los Angeles Times - California, national and world news - latimes.com

AAA Discounts

| FREE | AAA National

Web Buzz: Free phone application reminds you of AAA discounts - latimes.com - Los Angeles Times - California, national and world news - latimes.com

Do you use your AAA membership for only roadside assistance? This app reminds you that there are many opportunities to save money with your card when traveling. Name: AAA Discounts Available for: iPhone and Android What it does: Uses GPS to pinpoint and track your location, then sends you merchant discount offers in your area. You can plug in a city you might be traveling to and check discounts before you book your travel. I found 20% off hotel bookings and car rental as well as train discounts and cheaper tickets to museums. The app also offers turn-by-turn directions. Read More

Pocket First Aid & CPR

| $2.99 | Jive Media Inc

Your Money/Your Health: A guide to healthcare apps for your smart phone - latimes.com - Los Angeles Times - California, national and world news - latimes.com

American Heart Assn.'s Pocket First Aid and CPR app. (Jive Media) |By Francesca Lunzer Kritz, Special to the Los Angeles Times "Is there an app for that?" When it comes to consumer healthcare applications for smart phones, the answer, increasingly, is yes. There are now close to 6,000 consumer health apps, according to a review published in March by mobihealthnews, which reports on the mobile health industry, and more are being added every day. Many are free, or cost $1 to $10 to download. Some physicians are concerned about the reliability of the medical information provided by many of these apps, which offer advice and information on a wide array of health topics, including how to find a doctor, first aid for an emergency and exercise instructions. And they worry that consumers could follow an app's guidance for, say, monitoring high blood pressure, and leave it at that — forgoing visits with their physician. "The consumer health app market is still a very immature market with a lot of things being thrown out there," says Kevin Patrick, an adjunct professor of family and preventive medicine at UC San Diego and the editor of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Patrick also says that generally the apps have not been subjected to clinical trials that would show that they are effective in changing health behaviors, a claim of much of the marketing surrounding some health apps. For now, there's little objective vetting when it comes to medical and health apps. "Consumers are largely on their own; there is no organization that is policing, monitoring, or rating things like medical accuracy and consumer friendliness," says Dr. Joseph Kim, a physician and the founder and blogger for several websites, including medicalsmartphones.com. "Type 'diabetes' into an app-store search engine, you can find a huge list Read More