Doctors, Not Patients, May Be Holding Back mHealth Adoption

Clearly, mHealth technology has achieved impressive momentum among a certain breed of health-conscious, self-monitoring consumer. Still, aside from wearable health bands, few mHealth technologies or apps have achieved a critical level of adoption.

The reason for this, according to a new survey, may lie in doctors’ attitudes toward these tools. According to the study, by market research firm MedPanel, only 15% of physicians are suggesting wearables or health apps as approaches for growing healthier.

It’s not that the tools themselves aren’t useful. According to a separate study by Research Now summarized by HealthData Management, 86% of 500 medical professionals said mHealth apps gave them a better understanding of a patient’s medical condition, and 76% said that they felt that apps were helping patients manage chronic illnesses. Also, HDM reported that 46% believed that apps could make patient transitions from hospital to home care simpler.

While doctors could do more to promote the use of mHealth technology — and patients might benefit if they did — the onus is not completely on doctors. MedPanel president Jason LaBonte told HDM that vendors are positioning wearables and apps as “a fad” by seeing them as solely consumer-driven markets. (Not only does this turn doctors off, it also makes it less likely that consumers would think of asking their doctor about mHealth tool usage, I’d submit.)

But doctors aren’t just concerned about mHealth’s image. They also aren’t satisfied with current products, though that would change rapidly if there were a way to integrate mobile health data into EMR platforms directly. Sure, platforms like HealthKit exist, but it seems like doctors want something more immediate and simple.

Doctors also told MedPanel that mHealth devices need to be easier to use and generate data that has greater use in clinical practice.  Moreover, physicians wanted to see these products generate data that could help them meet practice manager and payer requirements, something that few if any of the current roster of mHealth tools can do (to my knowledge).

When it comes to physician awareness of specific products, only a few seem to have stood out from the crowd. MedPanel found that while 82% of doctors surveyed were aware of the Apple Watch, even more were familiar with Fitbit.

Meanwhile, the Microsoft Band scored highest of all wearables for satisfaction with ease of use and generating useful data. Given the fluid state of physicians’ loyalties in this area, Microsoft may not be able to maintain its lead, but it is interesting that it won out this time over usability champ Apple.

About the author

Anne Zieger

Anne Zieger is a healthcare journalist who has written about the industry for 30 years. Her work has appeared in all of the leading healthcare industry publications, and she's served as editor in chief of several healthcare B2B sites.

2 Comments

  • The data gathered by wearables is only useful if it’s accurate and can be analysed and digested affectively. Unfortunately it’s neither and you can’t blame the doctors for that. Tests have shown huge variations in results from fitness bands worn simultaneously and you’re quite right to point out that EMRs are not compatible. Even if the data fed into the EMR, doctors don’t have the tools to do the analytical work required to digest hour-by-hour readouts of weight, pulse, blood pressure and the like. I wrote a post on this topic recently: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/doctors-vs-techies-disconnect-digital-health-peter-hogg

  • The wearables are going to be considered a fad unfortunately for a long long time. There are lower hanging fruit when it comes to integrating patient generated data and having true push and pull transparency between applications that patients use and EHR (other HIT). Until that is achieved I cannot imagine anyone taking wearables seriously outside of PR opportunity.

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