Tackling the mobile health craze
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| Beth Walsh, Editor, CMIO |
Read on for top picks for mobile health sessions at HIMSS12.
Whether in research, healthcare organizations or the business world, all eyes are on mobile health.
On the business front, mobile applications helped drive venture investments in healthcare in 2011, with healthcare IT seeing a substantial increase over the previous year. According to a Jan. 20 report from Dow Jones, investors poured $8.4 billion into 738 deals for healthcare companies—down only a little from 2010, when the industry drew $8.3 billion for 747 deals. Healthcare was IT, which corralled $633 million for 86 deals. Dow Jones’ VentureSource cited the strength of interest in EMRs, internet and mobile applications, and information management tools. The numbers represented a 26 percent increase in deal activity and a 22 percent increase in capital raised over the previous year for health IT.
Studies indicate that the use of mobile devices in healthcare is only expected to increase. According to a report from Juniper Research, about three million people are expected to be using smartphone-powered remote patient monitoring devices by 2016.
Kaiser Permanente is one of the leading healthcare organizations when it comes to patient access and mobile health. The institution released a new application (app) for Android devices which allows nine million Kaiser Permanente patients to access their own medical information on mobile devices through a mobile-optimized website. Mobile device users can get full access to their information from the Kaiser Permanente health record system with the mobile-optimized version of kp.org.
Despite Kaiser Permanente’s initiative, research published online Jan. 4 by the Journal of Health Communication suggested that tools designed to help patients manage their health will receive underwhelming attention from patients.
Researchers conducted a randomized controlled trial in which study subjects were split into three groups with one receiving an intervention via print material, one receiving an intervention via web and one acting as a control group. The interventions were tracked and intended to improve colorectal cancer (CRC) screening by providing educational material to a population of women at average risk of CRC who were noncompliant with screening recommendations.
Out of the 130 participants included in the final analysis who received the web-based intervention, only 25 percent actually logged into the informational website and only 19 percent of those that logged in returned for a second time. Younger participants were more likely to use the website, but even among younger participants, only 30 percent visited the website.
Perhaps because of the results of this study and others like it, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) is sponsoring the “Go Viral to Improve Health Contest,” challenging students in health, engineering and computer science programs to create health-related mobile applications (apps) for a chance to win up to $10,000 in prize money. Submissions will be judged on design, usability and how well they integrate public health data by a group of five individuals from academia, the government and the private-sector.
How is your facility handling mobile health? Changes are sure to keep coming at a fast and furious pace.
Beth Walsh,
CMIO, Editor
bwalsh@trimedmedia.com
Beth Walsh
CMIO Editor
bwalsh@trimedmedia.com
Beth Walsh,
Editor
Editor Beth earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and master’s in health communication. She has worked in hospital, academic and publishing settings over the past 20 years. Beth joined TriMed in 2005, as editor of CMIO and Clinical Innovation + Technology. When not covering all things related to health IT, she spends time with her husband and three children.