This was mHealth in 2014.

Hard not to have noticed how mHealth took a rise in 2014. In case you might not have lived it as closely as I have, this article will give you a brief overview of what has (and hasn’t) happened around mHealth.

It certainly was hard not to have noticed the world’s biggest and most powerful IT companies taking their first steps into health care — most with particular emphasis on mobile technologies. Apple, Google, Samsung, and Microsoft all rushed into being the first to announce their (pretty much similar) health care platforms. But also Facebook, Amazon and IBM entered the discussion with some proper health care ambitions themselves. It’s only natural, then, that phrases like ‘game changer’, ‘paradigm shift’ and ‘market disruption’ were mentioned in that discours. Half-way 2014, BCC Research projected the Global mHealth Market to grow with a CAGR of 54% up to a 21,5 billion dollar in 2018. Interesting enough was that they expect Europe to grow faster than the other parts of the world as it has already been proactive in developing government-funded mHealth initiatives. The much anticipated mHealth Green Paper by the European Commission certainly shows the wide interest of the many parties involved in Europe.

It is still early to understand the real impact of this pivotal year in mHealth. One way to evaluate the succes of mHealth is of course the uptake of the usage of mobile apps related to health care: In the first half of 2014, the average daily usage of health & fitness apps grew twice as hard as the usage of apps overall, according to Flurry. Statista later published data indicating that health & fitness apps in the UK were as frequently used as the “news & music” applications (and even far more often used than games). In the United States, 70% of the US internet users are consulting their health & fitness apps at least once a day. Goal tracking, health awareness, and motivation seem to be their primary reasons for doing so, together covering 90% of their needs.

However, while these numbers are really remarkable, there is no reason to be too ecstatic yet. After all, most of these applications still have limited functions such as informing and instructing. This still leaves the biggest mobile opportunities in health care untouched: Applications that will guide, remind or communicate with the health consumers based upon data. This type of applications really will valorise mHealth. As soon as applications will make health consumers collect, share and evaluate the medical data in their applications, it will allow (medical) interventions currently not feasible yet. Within those functionalities lies the true potential of mHealth. A potential that will likely be realised by the spread of mobile sensors. And while there are already some first sensors getting popular out there, much is still to be said about the medical value of many of them in 2014.

Another misconception is about the number of health apps available in app stores. At so many mHealth conferences I have heard people (wrongly) referring to the availability of already +100.000 health applications. This would only makes sense when looking at the number of apps available in the stores under the so-called ‘health’ category. However, investigating this category a little bit more in-depth shows that the vast majority of these applications are not to be considered mHealth applications. Most of these applications don’t offer any “health services” whatsoever. Many are related to fashion and beauty. Some are just gimmicks. Others are about veterinary, horoscopes, baby names, etc… Referring to the +100.000 health apps on the market, does not correctly indicates the succes of mobile health, nor is it to be used to warn about the wide-spread of potentially poor-quality mobile health services.

Nevertheless, there was a huge interest in mHealth in 2014. On a weekly basis, one had the possibility to join multiple webinars, conferences, or congresses on mHealth. And while you could expect that so many happenings would impact the average attendance, most events still had huge and very diverse crowds: policy makers, physicians, hospitals, patient associations, home care, pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, universities, teachers, nurses, IT companies, lawyers, innovation managers, medical device companies, start-ups, EHR providers, consultancy companies, etc…

These events largely had the same agenda and touched upon similar topics: (1) Data privacy & security; (2) CE mark on medical devices; (3) Legal liability; (4) Quality labelling for applications; (5) Financing and reimbursement of medical applications; (6) The need for integrated care; (7) The obligations to work together with the authorities; etc… These topics are certainly interesting enough for good mHealth practices, but each of the events missed out on what will be one of the most crucial elements for success with mHealth solutions: “How to motivate a patient who mostly doesn’t want to be bothered about it”.

Most mHealth events presented the optimal mHealth solution as the combination of a couple of sensors, (secure) data, the necessary legal compliance and a mobile application. Rightfully so. But according to me, none of the events paid enough attention to what very often will be the missing link for success: the mobile application and the mobile user itself. Because how will we manage to turn those data into useful personal information or motivational solutions, without paying enough attention to the user? Is it that easy to create a frictionless experience for the health consumers? Even when handling all the above topics in a correct way, apps will quickly end up being buried at the cemetery of apps (called the smartphone) if there is not enough attention paid to the mobile application and the mobile user. At In The Pocket we couldn’t stress enough on the importance of “not just making another app”. We need to make mobile solutions that offer frictionless experiences for the user. It needs to be part of his (mobile) life. And I am convinced that this aspect will be even more critical for mobile health solutions than for any other mobile solution.

In summary, 2014 certainly was a breakthrough year for mHealth. We have seen lots of enthusiasm by big IT companies, mobile users and the diverse crowds at mHealth events. But as the Gartner Hype Cycle suggests, after the ‘peak of inflated expectations’ generally comes ‘disillusionment’. A part of the disillusionment could come from not interpreting the early numbers correctly. Another part could come from the un-availability of the data-generating sensors. But a very important part of disillusionment might potentially come from missing out on the most important aspects of mHealth: the mobile user and the mobile application itself.

At In The Pocket, we take into account the behaviour of the mobile user — as well as the health consumer — when creating mobile health solutions. With this unique combination of experiences, we can certainly help you in avoiding those disillusionments.