Why Mobile Health Will Go Mainstream

Everywhere you turn in technology you hear talk about the way smart phones and other mobile devices are going to revolutionize the way we interact online. When you look at the way mobile devices have infiltrated the world, it’s easy to see how this network of connected devices will be able to do so many things. Sure, mobile has many weaknesses such as a small screen, a small keyboard, and limited processing power. However, what it can do is even more powerful.

At its core, mobile can do a couple of things really well. Mobile can collect information, display information, and it can be used as a messaging tool. Think about each of these areas when it comes to healthcare. Is there any doubt that mobile health will be huge? It can benefit from all three areas where mobile excels.

Each of the three areas mentioned are incredibly powerful from the perspective of the patient. Mobile phones will absolutely become a medical device that collects a patient’s health information. A mobile phone will absolutely be the place where patients get health information, notifications, alerts, and other health related notices. The mobile phone will certainly become the go to place for us to message the various healthcare providers in our lives. Whether it’s text, email, or video. All of these will become common place in healthcare.

Imagine the patient engagement that’s possible in just the above 3 areas.

I’m still not certain if mobile health applications will come from new startup companies or existing companies deploying a mobile strategy. My gut tells me it will be startup companies, but healthcare is backwards in so many ways that I won’t yet count out existing companies. What I will guarantee is that mobile will be an integral part of pretty much every area of healthcare.

Post a Comment(1)
July 30, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 6000 articles with John having written over 3000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 14 million times. John also manages Healthcare IT Central and Healthcare IT Today, the leading career Health IT job board and blog. John launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: and and .

Filed Under: Health Care  Healthcare IT  Medical Devices  mHealth  Mobile Health Care
Tags:Mobile Health Medical Device  Mobile Health Startup Companies

Face-to-Face in Medicine


What a great tweet and insight into healthcare. Indeed, most people really underestimate what can be done face-to-face in healthcare. I first realized the value of this when a doctor visited my blog and described to me all of the things a doctor was observing in a face to face office visit. Everything from the way someone breathes, to the way someone sits, to the way someone coughs. It’s amazing how much data is available from just visually seeing the patient.

I agree that face-to-face is the best way to treat a patient. However, can an online video visit accomplish almost all of the upside of face-to-face interactions while minimizing any downsides? I think this is the challenge of telemedicine and something we’re making great strides in accomplishing. Of course it will never be as good as face-to-face, but I think it can get very close.

The other reason I’m a huge fan of the e-visit is that there’s a large percentage of visits where there’s no need for the visual part of the visit. Doctors know that much of the physical part of a patient visit is often just theatrics for the patient. The only reason we’re not doing more e-visits today is that doctors don’t get paid if they do e-visits. If they got paid they’d do many more with the same quality of care.

As we get more and more health sensors constantly tracking our health, we’ll need even less physical interaction to be seen by a doctor. For example, if I’ve been tracking my blood pressure twice a day at home, then is there a need for a patient to go into the doctor to get another blood pressure reading?

We’re just at the very beginning of these health sensors. The next generation doctor will be as good at understanding vast amounts of self generated health data as they are at understanding physical queues. The physical will never leave us completely, but what a doctor will be able to treat virtually will grow exponentially. The face-to-face interaction will just likely be by video instead of in an exam room.

Post a Comment(1)
July 29, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 6000 articles with John having written over 3000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 14 million times. John also manages Healthcare IT Central and Healthcare IT Today, the leading career Health IT job board and blog. John launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: and and .

Filed Under: Health Care  Healthcare IT  mHealth  Mobile Health Care  Telemedicine
Tags:      

mHealth Growth

A recent report looks at the future growth of the mHealth market:

The Research and Markets mHealth trends report shows the industry poised for a compound annual growth rate of 61 percent by 2017, to reach a value of $26 billion. This revenue, researchers project, will be derived predominantly from mHealth hardware sales and services.

Study findings also estimate that some 50 percent of mobile users will have downloaded mHealth applications within five years.

The last two sentences are the ones that really matter. First, it sees most of the growth from hardware sales and services. This is really interesting since so much of the activity in mHealth is in the software arena. See the thousands and thousands of mHealth apps in the various app stores. This report seems to say that these mHealth software will be a small portion of the actual market. Does this make sense?

The other thing that makes me question the study is the comment that within 5 years 50% of mobile users will have downloaded an mHealth application. I guess it depends on how you define an mHealth application, but I think that number will be much larger. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re at 50% of users having an mHealth application on their phone today. If we want to talk about mHealth application use, that’s a different story, but I think a huge percentage of mobile users have downloaded mHealth applications.

What do you think of these trends? Are you seeing these trends or are you seeing something different?

Post a Comment(0)
July 26, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 6000 articles with John having written over 3000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 14 million times. John also manages Healthcare IT Central and Healthcare IT Today, the leading career Health IT job board and blog. John launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: and and .

Filed Under: Health Care  Healthcare IT  mHealth  Mobile Health Care  Smart Phones
Tags:      

Focus on the Problem, Not the Solution

I’ve seen a regular thing happening in the mobile health space. This is particularly true when it comes to mobile health apps. A developer sits down and thinks, I bet I could make an app that can do XYZ. So, they sit down and develop the app and push it out to the app store. Yet, for some reason no one downloads and uses the app.

There are a couple reasons why this happens over and over again. First, no app markets itself. Seriously, there’s no such thing as an overnight success. It takes someone, and often a group of people, passionately marketing something everywhere they can find for an app to be successful. After an extraordinary effort, then you might start seeing those initial efforts grow into something that gets the benefit of unprovoked growth.

It’s important to realize though, that this second stage of the growth cycle will never happen if your product doesn’t actually solve someone’s problem. I’ve seen this over and over again. Someone launches an app which is a cool solution, but then after they put in the extraordinary effort to get the first users they realize that their solution doesn’t actually solve any problem.

Let me be clear that every solution solves a problem. The core question is whether anyone has the problem it solves.

For example, I’ve seen a slew of applications that do meal tracking. There are some really amazing solutions out there that track what you’ve eaten. How they handle portion sizes, calculate calories, and easily collect the information is beautiful. The question is, does someone have a problem tracking what they’re eating? No. The problem people have is trying to lose weight. Meal tracking is one thing that can assist you in that goal, but just tracking your meals doesn’t make you lose weight. If it did, those apps would have extraordinary uptake.
Note: I guess you could say some diabetics have a problem tracking what they’ve eaten, but most do that on paper and do ok. Plus, diabetics are a small subset of the larger population.

A mobile health application that solves a problem people care about will do really well. Unfortunately, far too many of them are so focused on the solution that they have to invent the problems they solve. This is amazing since healthcare has so many real problems. We don’t need people inventing problems to solve.

Post a Comment(0)
July 25, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 6000 articles with John having written over 3000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 14 million times. John also manages Healthcare IT Central and Healthcare IT Today, the leading career Health IT job board and blog. John launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: and and .

Filed Under: Health Care  Healthcare IT  mHealth  Mobile Health Care
Tags:    

The iWatch and Apple’s Role in Healthcare

Christina Farr at MedCityNews has a great article up about the rumors circling around Apple’s entrance into the digital health space. The article circles around the possible announcement of the Apple iWatch. Of course, right now it’s mostly just rumor that Apple is going to start selling an iWatch. Although, there are some strong suggestions that this is a possibility.

In some ways I can see how the iWatch is an interesting next step for Apple. However, unlike most other smart watches, I’m pretty sure that if Apple does release the iWatch it will do much more than just digital health. Sure, digital health will play a role in any watch based sensor device. I just don’t see Apple putting all their iWatch eggs in the digital health basket. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that if the iWatch can’t do more than digital health, then we’ll never see an iWatch on the market.

This will be a drastic change in the battle for the wrist. Would you rather wear a smart watch that only does digital health or something that does so much more? The answer is simple and if Apple is able to create a multi function smart watch, then they’ll destroy much of the other smart watch market.

Regardless of the iWatch, Apple is going to play a major role in healthcare thanks to the iPad and iPhone. Although, much like those devices, I think it’s very unlikely that Apple will make the decision to create a digital health specific product.

Post a Comment(0)
July 24, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 6000 articles with John having written over 3000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 14 million times. John also manages Healthcare IT Central and Healthcare IT Today, the leading career Health IT job board and blog. John launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: and and .

Filed Under: Apple  Health Care  Healthcare IT  iPad  iPhone  Medical Devices  mHealth  Mobile Health Care
Tags:        

The Most Underestimated Smart Health Device

I’ve written previously about the importance of the wrist in healthcare and how we’re in the middle of a “battle for the wrist.” The wrist is going to be an important battle. We’ll also see many other battles for glasses, shirts, shoes, etc. However, there’s one smart health device that I think has gotten overlooked by many: the car.

Think about how much time people spend traveling in their car each day. We can thank long commutes for this. It’s the perfect opportunity to build in smart health technologies. You’re a captive audience in a generally relaxed state. Ok, I’m sure some wouldn’t consider the daily commute a relaxed state. However, I’ve personally found it to be quite relaxing once you’re in the daily commute rhythm. Back when I was commuting regularly, I’d literally go into an almost robotic state as I made my daily drive.

Another advantage the car has is that it has no size issues. No one cares if your smart health care devices weighs 1 pound or 10 pounds. Size is also much less of an issue. Imagine how big you can make a smart health device on your wrist. Now imagine how much more space you have in a car. It’s really an almost laughable comparison.

Of course, there are some definite weaknesses of a smart health device in your car. For example, you have to drive and so pretty much everything you do needs to be voice activated or just work seamlessly with no user interaction. The great part is that voice recognition has gotten so much better. Plus, the very best health devices are going to be those that casually monitor your health with no user interaction needed. This is a powerful concept and perfect for the captive car driving audience.

While many underestimate the potential of the car as a health device, the car manufacturers aren’t underestimating the opportunity at all. Sure, they are careful in their approach, but they absolutely see an opportunity. We haven’t yet seen the breakout health app for cars, but it’s coming. Pretty soon the car will become a smart phone on wheels.

Post a Comment(0)
July 22, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 6000 articles with John having written over 3000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 14 million times. John also manages Healthcare IT Central and Healthcare IT Today, the leading career Health IT job board and blog. John launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: and and .

Filed Under: Health Care  Healthcare IT  Medical Devices  mHealth  Mobile Health Care
Tags:Car Health  Health Device Interaction  Smart Health Devices  Voice Recognition

Apple’s Top 118 Apps for Doctors


I had to kind of laugh at this tweet. I have mixed feelings of a “top” 118 mobile applications. At first glance, 118 seems like far too many apps for a “top” list. Although, when you start to think that there are tens of thousands and possibly over a hundred thousand mobile health applications, maybe 118 is a pretty narrow list.

Of course, the irony is that we only use on average about 5 applications regularly. Sure, we download dozens more, but we only use a few of the applications on a regular basis. Doctors are definitely no different in this regard. Maybe their average is a tough higher, but it’s still less than 118 applications. Think about what it would take to use 118 applications regularly. There’s not enough hours in a day to even do it.

What I do think this is showing is that we’re starting to see a maturing of the mobile health industry. Hopefully soon we’ll have some breakaway apps that really define the space and become a true “top” mobile app for doctors.

I recently read an article that talk about the difference between mobile and desktop. One difference they described was that on the desktop we turn to Google, but on a mobile we turn to apps. For example, if you want to know the weather on your desktop you Google to find it out. On your mobile you open your weather app or look at your weather widget. I think we can take this learning and apply it to healthcare.

Post a Comment(0)
July 19, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 6000 articles with John having written over 3000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 14 million times. John also manages Healthcare IT Central and Healthcare IT Today, the leading career Health IT job board and blog. John launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: and and .

Filed Under: Apple  Health Care  Healthcare IT  iPhone  mHealth  Mobile Health Care
Tags:    

mHealth and Digital Health Event List

Update: Looks like Paul moved his list to this new location.

Props go out to Paul Sonnier for creating this list of mHealth and Digital Health events. It shows you how many events are happening in the mobile health and digital health space.

My problem with this list is that I want to attend all of the events. This is a problem since I’ve been trying really hard not to travel for events. I traveled a bit too much to start the year and that took its toll on my family. So, I’m hoping to limit my travel for at least the rest of the year. We’ll see how well I can resist.

There are a few events where people are paying for me to attend the event and cover it on my network of sites and on Twitter. That makes it much easier to justify attending. Otherwise, I might be attending a lot of these conferences virtually as I follow their various hashtags on Twitter.

The unfortunate thing as I look at the list is that it doesn’t have any digital health events listed for Las Vegas. One year I was spoiled with HIMSS, ANI, and MGMA all in Las Vegas the same year. This year it seems like we’re looking at a bit of a drought.

What digital health and mHealth events are you planning to attend? Which events do you think I should attend?

Post a Comment(0)
July 18, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 6000 articles with John having written over 3000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 14 million times. John also manages Healthcare IT Central and Healthcare IT Today, the leading career Health IT job board and blog. John launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: and and .

Filed Under: Health Care  Healthcare IT  Healthcare Social Media  mHealth  Mobile Health Care
Tags:            

mHealth Market to Reach $23.49 Billion by 2018

I always love to think about market size numbers, and so it’s interesting to see them predicing the mHealth market to reach $23.49 billion in 2018. However, even more important is that the data from MarketsandMarkets says the global mHealh market is $6.21 billion in revenue in 2013.

The reason I say this second number is important is because the specific numbers matter very little. Instead, what matters is the growth trend of an industry. Is the industry getting larger or smaller? This will really affect how you work in the mHealth market.

I wish there was a breakout of the types of companies in the mHealth market and which ones make up the largest portion of the market. Then, we could have an even better understanding of where this market is heading. Plus, sometimes many non-mHealth market companies get included because they have some small piece of mHealth business.

The report also says to watch for Bluetooth, NFC and ZigBee for connectivity. They also see a trend in multi-parameter sensing medical monitors. The costs for these are coming way down.

Post a Comment(0)
July 17, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 6000 articles with John having written over 3000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 14 million times. John also manages Healthcare IT Central and Healthcare IT Today, the leading career Health IT job board and blog. John launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: and and .

Filed Under: Health Care  Healthcare IT  mHealth  Mobile Health Care
Tags:            

Stethoscope Replaced by USB Cable

I saw this tweet and it illustrated the shift to technology that’s happening in healthcare really well. It even has a picture that’s definitely worth 1000 words.

I’m sure this idea horrifies many doctors. However, Dr. Goh is absolutely right that power management and batter tech do need to catch up with the rest of technology. From many of the technologies I’ve seen in that space, I think we’re close to getting there. Mobile health definitely won’t reach its potential without some advancements in battery tech.

Post a Comment(0)
July 16, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 6000 articles with John having written over 3000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 14 million times. John also manages Healthcare IT Central and Healthcare IT Today, the leading career Health IT job board and blog. John launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: and and .

Filed Under: Health Care  Healthcare IT  mHealth  Mobile Health Care
Tags:    


  • Next