One thing's for certain about mobile health technology: It's taking off faster than ever as more clinicians, consumers and big-name corporations get onboard. This trend is only going to continue, according to Rich Scarfo, director of the annual mHealth Summit and vice president of the Personal Connected Health Alliance.
The young gay Latino male population is among the most vulnerable for contracting human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV. They've also been a population incredibly difficult to reach in clinical care and prevention efforts. One federally qualified health center, however, has managed to make serious strides.
As the Affordable Care Act spurs innovation and consumerism grows, deal sizes for digital health have increased. Meanwhile, more and more private equity firms are pouring capital into the sector as the market matures.
A recent study involving 1,500 patients, conducted by the University of California Department of Medicine, found that remote monitoring and telephone-based nurse coaching intervention reduced hospital readmissions among patients with heart failure.
With more than 100,000 customers using a wearable device to record health habits and earn bonus points, Walgreens claims it's working to make population health an everyday practice.
A two-day event, co-located with the mHealth Summit, will focus on making mobile technologies scale to an international level.
"mHealth apps and wearables will play an important part in personalizing healthcare and improving health outcomes through information transparency and engaged patients,” says MediSafe chief executive Omri Shor.
As Walgreens' vice president of digital health, Adam Pellegrini and his team have managed to mix wearables, gamification and evidence-based medicine in such a way as to provide a successful, seamless, holistic approach to health for customers.
Over the past two years, as many as 3,000 mHealth projects have been launched worldwide, with only 10 of those being scaled to anything resembling a global presence. A new collaboration between the U.S. Agency for International Development and the mHealth Summit hopes to change that.
Simply knowing your options about what kind of reimbursement is available is arguably the biggest hurdle to launching a telehealth program. "If you can understand that," said Alexis Gilroy, a healthcare attorney with the firm Jones Day, "then you can navigate and build the right kinds of products and processes."
