Breaking Down the Mobile Health Apps by Number

Dan Munro has a great blog post on Forbes that offers an overview of the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics report on the mobile health app market. Check out his whole article for all the findings, but I was really intrigued by his list of study results:
1. Every app categorized as “health and wellness” or “medical” in Apple’s AAPL -0.11% iTunes store was reviewed
2. Of the 43,000+ mobile health apps assessed for the report – only 23,682 were classified with a legitimate health function
3. 5 apps accounted for 15% of all downloads
4. 16,275 were considered patient facing
5. 7,407 were considered provider facing
6. Smartphone use is lowest (18%) in the 65+ demographic
7. More than 90% of the apps tested scored less than 40 on a scale of 100
8. Apps were further categorized by 7 capabilities:
– Inform (10,840 apps)
– Instruct (5,823 apps)
– Record/Capture data (5,095 apps)
– Display User entered data
– Guide
– Remind/Alert (1,357 apps)
– Communicate
– None of the 7 capabilities (1,622 apps)

I always love data and this is some interesting data. Dan’s headline was also another interesting piece of data: “Over 50% Of Mobile Health Apps Are Downloaded Less Than 500 Times.” We’ve talked about this before. It’s one thing to build a mobile health app and another thing to get someone to actually use it. Many fall short of the later objective.

One other stat in the list above that stood out to me was the split between provider facing mobile health apps and patient facing mobile health apps. I would have thought that more of them would be patient facing. That’s a lot of provider focused mobile health apps considering the size of the provider market. Of course, each of those doctors do control a lot of consumer spend.

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October 31, 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  mHealth  Mobile Health Care
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Mobile App Reimbursement

It’s only been a question of time for when insurance companies would start reimbursing companies for a mobile health application. In an article on Forbes, they talk about WellDoc being the First to Sell Mobile Prescription Therapy. The company WellDoc has gotten FDA clearance for their mobile application BlueStar.

WellDoc has started to sale BlueStar through self-insured companies, but will now have to get out there and work with doctors much like drug companies have to do. The next generation of pharma sales reps are going to be peddling mobile applications to doctors.

The key to what WellDoc is doing is their year-long randomized clinical trial to prove that its product works and doesn’t cause side effects. The question I have is how many mobile health applications are planning to go to this effort.

I was a little disappointed to find out that WellDoc’s mobile application does require a mobile coach as well. So, the mobile is an important part of the product, but they still have a human participating as well. Certainly they’re treading lightly in this new form of mobile therapy.

I love this quote from the Forbes article:

All this was new territory for pharmacies and the National Council for Prescription Drug Programs which maintains standards for exchanging pharmacy data. “Their reaction was ‘you’re like a drug, but you’re not; you’re like a device, but you’re not,’” says Bergstrom. “They realized this is where the future is going,” adds Anand Iyer, WellDoc’s president.

No doubt there’s going to be a lot of challenges that WellDoc faces as it tries to sale doctors on using this product. However, they’re right that it is the future.

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July 3, 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 Diabetes Management  National Council for Prescription Drug Programs  

Is the Tricorder Device a Reality?

Back in January, Qualcomm and the X-Prize Foundation announced a contest that offered $10 million to anyone that could develop a tricorder similar to the one that was used in Star Trek.  I wrote back then that I didn’t think it was that unrealistic, and after reading a recent article, I am even more convinced that we will see such a device in the very near future.

The article was written by Mark Mills of Forbes.com who addresses how social media will lead to the next revolution: Social Medicine.  I’ve written about the use of social media and how beneficial it can be to healthcare on so many levels, but he describes it better than I ever could.

The company that he talks about, Scanadu, definitely seems to have the write idea in terms of using social media to make the tricorder a reality.  You can see a short video below that gives a great visual of what they are trying to accomplish in making healthcare more accessible and efficient for everyone.

How awesome would it be to be able to take pictures of a rash or injury that your kid had, add a few details of how they are feeling, and within seconds get a pretty good idea of what is wrong with them.  If it was an emergency you would know quickly and be able to get them the help they needed.  In general, an emergency is relatively obvious, so to me the greater value is in preventing unnecessary trips to the doctor when the condition will simply pass with time.

In this world of instant gratification it would be awesome to to be able to get more regular updates on your health.  The one major risk here is that people will rely solely on their smartphone and attached devices rather than going to a professional when they really need it.  The beauty there is that it would be super easy to send an email or phone message to the patient’s doctor letting them know what is going on with their patient so they could step in if needed.

It will be incredibly exciting to see how Scanadu and other companies develop modern technology into the social medicine of the future.  Do you think there is any limit to what is possible in the future of healthcare?

 

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June 4, 2012 I Written By

Filed Under: Android  Apple  Gadgets  Health Care  Healthcare IT  Medical Devices  mHealth  Mobile Health Care  Smart Phones  Social Networking Health
Tags:  Mark Mills      Social Healthcare  Social Medicine  Tricorder Device  X Prize Foundation