mPOWEr - Demo version - not for clinical use.

mPOWEr Help for Providers and Staff


About the mPOWEr System


Which clinics should use mPOWEr?

We are conducting our initial implementation of mPOWEr in a few UW Medicine, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and Northwest Hospital clinics. Patients undergoing surgery in those clinics will be offered the chance to use mPOWEr for post-operative wound monitoring and to enhance outpatient communication with their surgery providers. If they choose to use the app, they will be instructed how to register and create an account, then how to use mPOWEr daily for the first week post discharge or until their first follow up appointment. The providers at these clinics will have the ability to review patient reported data on the mPOWEr dashboard and to document their data review in EPIC.

Let us knowif you're interested in using mPOWEr in another clinic.

Will I be notified when my patient uploads a photo and/or symptoms?

No. At this time we are instructing patients to upload photo(s) and/or symptoms in mPOWEr and then contact the clinic via telephone if they have any wound questions or concerns. The usual process for managing questions regarding wounds will be enhanced by the data available in mPOWEr, and the encounter can be documented in EPIC by creating a data summary PDF and uploading it through the media manager.

Providers can login directly to mPOWEr or ask another member of the clinic care team who has mPOWEr access to download an mPOWEr patient summary report.

Where is the patient’s mPOWEr data stored? Is it secure?

mPOWEr is a secure, HIPAA-compliant, mHealth platform that collects patient data as part of the care process. All patient data are stored on a secure, encrypted server at University of Washington and are managed by the UW Clinical Informatics Research Group (CIRG). CIRG maintains security of the servers with the goal of meeting or exceeding the standards of both UW Information Technology (UW-IT) and UW Medicine Information Technology Services (ITS), as described in the System Security Standard (SS-01, Feb 2013). In addition, we use the "best practices" derived from the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) at Carnegie Mellon, and Microsoft Corp, for specific server environments.

How do I share this information with other providers involved in the patient’s care via mPOWEr?

Currently we are not supporting provider access outside of UW Medicine. If you are interested in sharing your patient’s mPOWEr data with a provider outside of UW Medicine, please let us know.

Will I be able to view mPOWEr data in EPIC?

A PDF summary of the patient’s mPOWEr data may uploaded into EPIC to document a clinical encounter, such as a telephone note or clinic progress note. The PDF may be uploaded via the Media Manager and will reside in the patient’s chart under the Media tab.

When viewing a patient from the mPOWEr Patient List, you can also select a basic report for each patient session. This report makes it easy to copy and paste symptoms and images into a patient note.

How is this better than having a photo emailed to me?

mPOWEr allows you to securely view the wound-healing history via serial photographs and symptoms documented by the patient in a standardized format in a kind of electronic diary. Since the patient is instructed to use mPOWEr daily, the information, including photos and symptom history, will be available instantly as you assess the patient’s condition. The goal is to reduce the amount of time spent collecting, documenting, and acting on this information, and to present it in a way that allows review of multiple photographs and symptoms over time. mPOWEr also promotes the patient’s involvement as they have a more active role in their recovery through the maintenance of the daily wound diary.

Will there be research conducted to assess if this project is successful and improves patient outcomes?

This project is a quality improvement initiative. In order to determine the usability and usefulness of mPOWEr, we will also invite both providers and patients who use mPOWEr to report on their satisfaction with the app and the dashboard. We will also review the potential impact of mPOWEr on surgical wound outcomes, tracking the rate of surgical site infection and healthcare utilization (e.g., unplanned clinic or ED visits, readmissions, return to OR) after mPOWEr is implemented in the clinic.

The feedback elicited from providers or patients in specific settings may be part of a research project or may be part of QI improvement of postoperative care, depending on the setting. If your clinic is part of a research project, consent will be obtained from patients and providers asked to participate.

Who do I contact if I have technical issues using mPOWEr?

The mPOWEr Help Desk can help with any technical issues experienced by both patients and providers in using mPOWEr. We normally respond to all inquiries and support requests during "Pacific time-zone business hours". We can be contacted as follows:


Details on Usage


How do I login to mPOWEr as a provider or clinic staff?  

If you are a member of one of the clinics using mPOWEr, you can login with your UW NetID at the provider login page.

  1. Go to mpower.uwmedicine.org in any web browser (mPOWEr works on computers, smart phones and tablets -- any device with a modern web browser)
  2. Click on the “Clinician Login” link to display a box about logging in as a provider. In that box, click on the “Login with UW NetID” button
  3. After entering your NetID and password, you'll be taken to the mPOWEr provider interface. At the top, you’ll see links to the “Patient List” and “Manage Patients”

If you should have access to mPOWEr as a provide, but have problems logging in with your UW NetID, please contact the help team at mpowerit@uw.edu

How do I register a new patient in mPOWEr?  

  1. When logged in to mPOWEr, Select the “Manage Patients” tab.
  2. In the left menu, click on "Add New Patient" to go to the form.
  3. Fill in the required fields. Make sure to include an email address. It's helpful to include the surgery details, if known, as well.
  4. After pressing "Submit", you'll be taken to the "Edit" page for this new patient.
  5. You'll need to send an email to the patient to complete their registration by selecting a username and password. Select the "Registration Invitation" email option under the "Send Email to Patient" menu.
  6. That's it! The patient finish the registration process.

How do I view a patient's mPOWEr reports?  

After logging in, you should be able to view the "Patient List"

Using the Patient List:

  • All patients are shown in a table sorted by patients with the most recent sessions at the top.
  • You can sort by clicking on the header of each table column. You can do quick filters by using the “Search” box in the upper right.
    • Search by a provider’s name to quickly see all her patients
    • Search by a type of surgery to quickly see all mPOWEr patients with that surgery listed.
  • To see more about a patient, click anywhere on that patient’s row in the table.

Viewing a Patient Report:

  • At the top of a patient page, you’ll see details on surgery in boxes at the top along with the patient’s contact information.
  • In the middle of the page, the main part of the report shows results from mPOWEr sessions.
    • The most recent session is always on the right when there’s more than one session
    • On the left you can use the blue “slider” to go back and forth through previous sessions
    • If a patient has uploaded photo(s), you can view them. There are links to view a large version and delete a photo if it’s not useful or appropriate.
    • For each session, any symptom answers will appear below the photos
  • The bottom of the report has a table showing a patient’s answers to survey questions over the course of their mPOWEr use.
  • At the top of the report, there are some additional buttons where you can “Print”, “See a Simple Report for EPIC” and “Download a PDF version” of the report.

How do edit a patient's information?  

Finding a Patient:

There are two approaches to finding a particular patient:

  • From the “Patient List”, go to a patient report and click on “Edit Patient” link at the top.
  • From “Manage Patients”, find that patient in the table and click on their row.

Editing a Patient:

  • In the left column, you’ll see “Patient Information” where you can edit demographic information, contact details, etc. By default, you can’t edit any of fields until you click on the “Edit” button next to the title.
  • On the right, there’s an “E-mail” section you can use to send emails to the patient. Depending on their status, you can choose an email requesting that they finish registering for mPOWEr or a reminder to do a new mPOWEr session.
  • On the right, there’s a “Surgical Procedures” section where you can edit or add an additional surgery for that patient.

How do I upload to EPIC?  

Here's how to create a telephone note in EPIC with the information that a patient provides in mPOWEr.

  1. In EPIC: First, log into EPIC and open a telephone encounter for the patient. Click in the Documentation box and type “.MPOWERWOUND”
  2. In mPOWEr: Next, find the patient in mPOWEr and choose the wound data you wish to add to the note by clicking on "Choose report session" and then selecting the correct report session date from the drop down menu.
  3. To copy and paste the symptoms and session data,
    • In mPOWEr: click on “Select All Symptoms” button and hold down the Control key while pressing “C” on your keyboard
    • In EPIC: go to the EPIC window and right click in the Documentation text box then select "Paste" in the drop down menu (or left click in the documentation box then hold Control while pressing “V” on your keyboard)
  4. To copy and paste the photo(s),
    • In mPOWEr: Right click on the photo and select "Copy" (in Internet Explorer) or "Copy Image" (in Chrome, Firefox or Safari).
    • In EPIC: Go to the telephone note by clicking in the documentation box and pressing Control while pressing “V” on your keyboard. Be patient, as it will take a minute to paste!
    • Note that the images copied will be up to 1200 pixels high and wide, and that you will need to repeat the two prior steps for each photo to copy and paste in the note.
  5. Add any text you wish to the telephone encounter and click “Close” (or F9), then sign the visit and close the encounter.

What if I forget my password?

You will always login with your UW NetID. Resetting your password with be done through UW IT Connect and not through mPOWEr.

Who do I contact if I have technical issues using mPOWEr?

You can contact mPOWEr’s IT Help Desk, at mpowerit@uw.edu. For technical issues that arise after 5pm PST, you can expect a response the next business day.

How do I add a shortcut to a patient's phone?  

mPOWEr is a web-based app. It's easy to add a shortcut to mPOWEr on a smartphone so it can be opened like any other app. Follow these instructions based on the patient’s type of phone:

iPhones and other iOS devices:

  1. Go to the https://mpower.cirg.washington.edu/ in the phone’s Safari web browser.
  2. On the bottom menu, tap the “share” button.
  3. Choose “Add to Home Screen”

Android phones and tablets:

  1. Go to the https://mpower.cirg.washington.edu/ in the phone’s web browser.
  2. Tap the three dot "menu" button to the right of the address bar.
  3. Choose "Add to Home Screen"

I have photos of my patient's wound. Can I add them to mPOWEr?

Yes. Find the patient in the patient list (which you can access under the menu). Click on the camera icon on the right side of the line containing the patient information. Double check the patient’s ID information, and then press the “take a photo” button.