In 2013, the health IT sector raised $2.2 billion through venture and other institutional investment, up 40 percent from 2012. And last year GE Healthcare announced it’s own $2 billion dollar commitment to IT investment as well. John Dineen, President & CEO of GE Healthcare, said, “Healthcare has always relied on ’big data,’ and the need to understand data is even greater now.”
And you’re helping drive this industry change.
Wainwright Fishburn Jr., a board member of the Wireless-Life Sciences Alliance, delivered a keynote speech at the Digital Health Summit. He explained how fitness sensor wearing consumers are playing a critical role in pushing digital health into the mainstream. You see, the big data you’re providing with your mobile health apps and wearables, is helping physicians. With it, they can more effectively pinpoint the right diagnosis for a condition, match it to the right treatment, and make more informed decisions.
“I think health care has been slow to adopt contemporary IT,” explains Satish Vuppalapati, co- founder of Prithvi Information Solutions. “Because health care has been so focused on equipment and research upgrades, their file systems were kind of ‘good enough’ and they were fine with the way they were doing things.” But that’s all changed with patient demand for health and fitness related personal technologies. While many believe it’s doctors and hospitals pushing digital transformation in the wellness industry, patients are responsible for nudging it along, as well. .
The future and forces of digital health
Two of the four forces pressing for digital health, as identified in PSFK’s newly released “The Future of Health” report, are directly consumer-driven. First, the mobile-empowered “behavioral nudge” causing people to make healthier lifestyle choices, and rely less on healthcare resources. And second, the socially “empowered patient” who today is better educated and prepared when visiting the doctor’s office.
"The future of healthcare IT is truly the convergence of technology innovation, electronic medical record, big data and mobility,” explained Praveen Chopra, CIO of Thomas Jefferson University, TJU Hospital System. “It is happening at warp speed.”
And guess what?
Your doctors want this type of thing, too. As much as they like you stopping in and saying “hi”, they’re eager to get you in-and-out more efficiently. Interaction with the physician is up to 80 percent of what consumes time, energy, and money in the client-patient exchange. With the proliferation of health-based mobile apps, the new,“data-fed” physician patient interaction can be focused entirely on areas where the physician can provide the greatest insight.
Mobile health apps
Almost every person in the US – 247 million – has downloaded a healthcare app for his or her personal use. And Business Insider reports there are more than 100,000 mobile health apps available for consumers. This “mHealth”, or Mobile Health surge comes because people are using the technology. A recent study suggested that 90 percent of chronic patients would readily accept a prescription for a mobile app compared to just 66 percent willing to accept a prescription for medication.
And according to the most recent industry data available, doctors are beginning to encourage patients to use mobile health apps, too. eClinicalWorks just conducted an online survey of healthcare professionals in order to assess health care providers’ interest in mobile health apps. “In order to transform health care, patients need to be engaged,” said Girish Kumar Navani, CEO and co-founder of eClinicalWorks. “People are invested in and want to be engaged in their health as long as they trust the source of the information.”
The company highlighted research findings in an infographic.
4 mobile health app rules
So keep wearing your wearables and using your mobile apps, people. It’s good for both you, and the once stagnant health care industry. For you mobile app developers, it can be a good thing, as well.
Want “in” on the health IT game?
Forbes offers up a few things you should know about making a successful health app. For a fighting chance at broad user adoption, and “to move from novelty to mainstream,” Dan Munro writes, healthcare apps need these characteristics:
- Evidence of clinical efficacy needs to be both outcomes and cost based for payers and providers to support and endorse patient use
- Robust security and privacy assurances (and liability)
- Apps need some level of curation for healthcare professionals to recommend
- Integration with other parts of patient care – including personal and electronic health records as well as patient portals
Main image credit: niobiumlabs.com
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