Key factors for a Health APP

The Health sector together with the ascending Digitization, is experiencing a true boom in America and Europe. With Chiyana a few months ago, we already reflected on: Telemedicine. Has your chance come? . Every day, more than 200 health services are published in APP Stores, but despite such rapid growth, the market is still far from saturation, much work remains for Health APPs to mature and become tools integrated into our style of life and useful for health professionals.

The Health APP market

Consumers around the world are downloading and spending more money than ever on health apps.

According to Statista, the size of the global mobile health market is projected to reach $ 333 billion by 2025.

As analyzed in Goldstein Market Intelligence, the global market for mobile health devices will grow 38.6% annually in the coming years.

According to this research by NCBI, about 68% of the population in the US has a health app on their mobile phones.

Income forecast in Health APP. Source: Statista

Many things begin to change in relation to the way in which health reaches the general public, creating new channels and ways in which to communicate and send and/or receive information. The mobile health app market is growing by leaps and bounds. This huge industry is expanding every day and shows no signs of stopping, stimulated, among others, by the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

Health APP success stories

 

Peloton, which offers bikes and treadmills with a built-in screen for online workouts at home has increased more than 50% in one month. The Mirror company, which in 2016 invented an interactive training mirror and has raised more than $ 70 million in investment for its application, has doubled its sales since the beginning of the pandemic to the point that Lululemon, a sportswear company, wants to buy it for 500 million dollars.

As you may have observed in the examples, these success stories do not focus your business solely on a Health APP, the key factor is to offer a range of services far beyond simply a Health APP. The functionalities in the Health APP must be accompanied by objectives and purposes that consequently have an improvement in our Health. The services are very diverse, from exercise machines, monitoring equipment, to accessories or clothing.

 

Telemedicine

 

According to Research2Guidance, 80% of doctors use medical apps to improve their work. Mobile devices are changing the way patients communicate with doctors. Currently, doctors have the ability to communicate with video and voice, although it is not the ideal scenario, there are specific cases and procedures that can be performed without a problem through this means.

A few years ago, the vast majority of health apps were actually lifestyle apps for sleeping, training, or nutrition, but now there are also a large number of services focused on telemedicine, allowing you to communicate with a doctor, monitor and analyze possible symptoms.

For example, the other day I was surprised by the announcement of a large Spanish telephone company, which we all know well. This company advertised offering an eHealth service, with which you could communicate with a health professional. All this taking advantage of the technology you already have to view the multimedia content offered by this company. Technologically, I find it fantastic the ease with which with the remote control of your TV you have direct access to a medical professional on the other side of the screen, although clinically I suppose it will have its limitations of course.

To offer the best healthcare, professionals in the sector need powerful and intuitive tools. That is why wearables with measurement and monitoring of your vital signs, among others, allow you to effectively inform, in addition to being able to carry out revolutionary medical research, reaching millions of people. The result of the use of these devices is more efficient, personalized, and, ultimately, more humane care.

 

Data measurement and monitoring

 

Currently, the vast majority of mobile phones have the ability to measure your heart rate, respiratory rate, monitor sleep, physical activity, among others, in addition to having the ability to share this information with other devices to evaluate or expand capabilities.

As the Gallup poll shows, 45% of the US population has tried some type of mobile health and fitness applications, and 20% are regular consumers of these services. Without forgetting that we carry our mobile phone 24 hours a day. From my point of view, monitoring through wearables such as Apple Watch or Fitbit has made it possible to professionalize the world of the Health APP. Currently, there are already more than 15,000 scientific publications that examine the capabilities of these wearable devices.

These wearable devices are intended to provide more comprehensive health information and have the potential to play a relevant role in clinical care and shared decision-making between patients and healthcare professionals.

Apple is democratizing healthcare by providing access to precision sensors and software so that consumers can access real information about their health and learn how the decisions they make affect them in their day-to-day lives. To do this, Apple has its own development framework for Health APPs, ResearchKit, and CareKit, which allows facilitating the design of Health APPs in all kinds of areas. This open-source framework simplifies medical management processes such as informed consent, measurement, and monitoring of health data 24 hours a day, not only during periodic visits.

Conclusion

For millions of people around the world, mobile phones, tablets, computers, TV, among others, already act as mobile devices in health and communication and diagnosis for telemedicine, especially in times of social distancing. More and more we choose to install health and/or healthcare applications on our phones, seeking personalized control over the way we access and manage our health, from lifestyles such as sports to medical care with our health center. There are endless possibilities where we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg.