The future of patient engagement in mental health

According to Gartner, in 2015, smartphone sales reached 1.4 billion units [1], and in the first quarter of 2016, they represented 78% of total mobile phone sales. [2]

A new report by the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics revealed that there are now more than 165,000 mobile health apps on the market. Nearly two-thirds are focused on general wellness issues like fitness, lifestyle, stress, and diet. The remaining third is made up by apps focused on specific health conditions (9%), medication info & reminders (6%), and women’s health & pregnancy (7%). Mental health apps led among disease-specific apps, followed by diabetes. [3]

Nevertheless, with telemedicine, mobile health (mHealth) solutions, and wearable devices, the future of better patient engagement is certainly favourable.

During the last few years, the development of wearable devices that can track heart rate, blood pressure, calories and count steps has experienced an enormous growth. This type of technology is revolutionizing the level of patient engagement by proving individuals with an accessible platform to monitor their progress; information that until now was not available.

Nowadays, patients are increasingly looking for health information online, including their medical records. They request access to information and tools to take control of their health. To make this possible, clinics and patients can use a software platform that allows them to share information with each other while keeping the information safe.

Mental health care is not an exception. Now, more than ever, individuals want to be involved in their treatment. A few years ago, patients with a mental illness, had a very passive role in their treatment. They were required to attend weekly consultations, take their medication every day and report their symptoms to the clinician at their next consultation.

The Monsenso mHealth platform empowers patients suffering from mental and behavioural illnesses, to take control over their illness and play an active role in their treatment.

The Monsenso platform helps individuals and clinicians to monitor the illness symptoms and mood patterns continuously. It also helps them handle their medication, as well as to recognize behavioural trends and early warning signs (EWS). [4]
 
 Based on self-reported and automatically collected sensor data, it provides timely feedback to the patient increasing illness awareness. By using it on a daily basis, it creates insights into the illness progression. These types of personal health technologies have the potential to apply machine learning techniques that can monitor and learn to recognize a patient’s circumstances and state and supply personalized context-appropriate clinical responses. [5]

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