Mobile Health: The Really Big Mobile App

With traditional information services facing steep pressure, businesses in telecommunications and information services are looking to find significant growth opportunities. While there is much discussion about the number of applications that have been developed for the Apple iPhone and other smartphones, the vast majority of applications aren’t profitable for their developers. The most popular smartphone applications reported by Apple are in the games and entertainment categories. MHealth applications, on the other hand, hold the promise of real profitability, though the number of successful mHealth applications will be far fewer in number than the total number of smartphone applications. Successful mHealth application development will require an understanding of a complex environment involving health care needs, technology, and reimbursement.

The US health care system is much maligned, even in the US, because it reportedly costs twice the cost of health care in other developed nations on a per capita basis and delivers no better, and sometimes worse, health care than that delivered in other developed nations. The late US senator Everett Dirksen reportedly said “a billion here and a billion there, sooner or later we’ll have real money.” A billion dollars is small change in US health care today, which costs an estimated $ 2.2 trillion each year, or 16% of the US Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The US wireless association, CTIA (www.ctia.org), launched an industry-wide wireless health initiative in April 2009, that includes industry events, education, and device certification. As part of this initiative, the CTIA held a briefing in the US on Capitol Hill on June 24th with experts describing both the problems as well as wireless-based solutions.

Speakers at the mHealth briefing were notable medical and policy experts including US Representative and Member of the 21st Century Health Care Caucus Adam Smith (D-WA-9); Chief Medical Officer of the West Wireless Health Institute and Chief Academic Officer for Scripps Health Eric Topol, M.D. and White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Fellow Dan Fletcher, PhD.

CTIA says that mHealth solutions today use off-the-shelf applications and technology such as text messaging and mobile voice to prompt patients to take medication, follow a certain diet, engage in physical activity, check their glucose levels, take their blood pressure, detect cardiac arrhythmias and more. By making healthcare more personal and individualized, mHealth solutions are expected to significantly improve the medical community’s ability to resolve epidemics, reduce medical errors and expand preventive healthcare.

In addition, mHealth can make a tremendous impact on chronic conditions such as congestive heart failure, diabetes or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. In the US, more than 45 percent of Americans suffer from at least one of these diseases and approximately a quarter of the population has multiple conditions. According to Richard Adler’s Health Care Unplugged: The Evolving Role of Wireless Technology report, if patients suffering from chronic conditions agreed to have their doctor monitor them remotely via mobile wireless applications, (i.e., monitor patients’ health and track and guide self-care beyond the doctors’ offices), the savings would amount to $ 21.1 billion per year by reducing emergency care, hospitalization and nursing home costs. mHealth would allow the millions of Americans living in remote, rural areas to “visit” the best doctors’ offices in the country, eliminating healthcare disparities based on geographic location and economic differences.

The CTIA says Congress needs to ensure that healthcare reforms encourage the implementation of mHealth solutions and are made accessible to millions of Americans, especially for preventive care. For example, a definition of “meaningful use” should be broad enough to include mHealth solutions, and revisions to Medicare be implemented to add mHealth solutions as being covered services subject to reimbursement. These kinds of policies are critical to the medical and wireless industry’s efforts to bring better healthcare services to millions of Americans.
-Stuart Whitaker