US Doctors Believe Using Health Apps Will Reduce Visits
March 13, 2012

We referred to the rapid acceleration of teleHealth/mHealth solutions as an “explosion” a few weeks ago, and this article has used exactly the same word in what is actually a description of what’s happening today in USA rather than a prediction of future trends.

The item, published on mashable.com states that;

40% of doctors believe that using mobile health technologies such as apps that monitor fitness and eating habits can reduce the number of office visits needed by patients.
About 88% of doctors are in full support of patients monitoring their health at home, especially when it comes to watching weight, blood sugar and vital signs, and many believe consumers should take advantage of the apps currently on the market to help along the process.

Nice article, from which the most salient raw statistic is that in USA there are 185 mobile phones per hospital bed. The mood music from the piece though seems to be the idea of people using technology to protect their own health. This questions our own interpretation of the meaning of telehealth, which can of course be anything on a spectrum from the institutionally provided, investment-heavy, coordinated initiatives, right through to gizmos attached to training shoes to tell you how fit you are.

It would be interesting to see whether the same mentality gleaned from the data used in this US report applies in Europe, especially UK, where the commonly held view we’ve heard from the medical community goes something like; “telehealth is all well and good, but it costs money which is in short supply”.

Source: mashable.com

Categorised in Economics, Healthcare, medlatest Editorial, Telehealth