Handheld healthcare: Mobile apps spread around the globe

Mobile access to healthcare, through apps or telemedicine, will continue to grow in the coming years. A new report from SA-Business Research & Consulting Group, "Global Smart Phone Enabled Healthcare Diagnostics Market Assessment & Forecast: 2016 - 2020," shows the most potential growth in rural countries and those offering care otherwise unavailable.

The report outlines the growth of smartphone healthcare products and differing capabilities from regions around the world. With more than 550 million people using smartphones for health-related purposes, the market continues to expand.

In making healthcare more accessible to individuals, such tools can improve care in developing countries and reach populations unreachable in the past. In areas of Africa, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Eastern Europe, where healthcare providers are few and far between, smartphone healthcare reaches rural communities. Smartphones are capable of diagnosing sexually transmitted diseases, diabetes and other chronic conditions and giving people the treatment that they need.

The diagnosing of conditions with these developing countries are saving the lives of people who had once gone untreated. The low-cost and portable smartphone is putting in the work on fighting the most common conditions within these developing regions including malaria, tuberculosis, HIV and other major "high-mortality" conditions.