One of the hottest topics for speculation in
healthcare today is the unrealized potential for mobile health defined as
technologies that use mobile devices, apps or telehealth to connect patients
and physicians to transform the way healthcare is sought and delivered. Two
thirds of Americans own a smartphone (http://www.
pewinternet.org/factsheets/mobiletechnologyfactsheet/), and companies are eager
to tap this widespread technology for the benefit of patients, doctors and
hospitals. But expert say it’s not yet obvious how exactly mobile services
might be leveraged in the bureaucratic world of healthcare with its highly
sensitive privacy issues.
“The fact is that consumers are mobile, so healthcare
has to respond to that,” Shira D’Erasmo, a communications director at the
insurance company Humana, said at a panel discussion
(http://www.nypharmaforum.org/ events/thefutureisnowtheeraofmobilehealth/) on
mobile health held on Thursday as part of the Third New York Health Forum at
the Explorer’s Club in Manhattan.
Already, some companies have launched mobile
services focused on easing the inconvenience for patients of dealing with the
healthcare system. ZocDoc, Inc. (https://www.zocdoc.com/) is an online doctor
booking service that has been adapted for mobile. Kevin Kumler, the company’s
vice president, points out that it takes 18 days on average
(http://www.everydayhealth.com/ news/doctorwillseeyoufewweeks/) for a patient
to book a primary health care appointment in the U.S. The service grants
patients access to a physician’s calendar to schedule their appointment right
away much like consumers can use Seamless to order food online or Uber to call
a driver.
Unity Stoakes, founder of StartUp Health
(https://www.startuphealth.com/), which provides consultation to healthcare
entrepreneurs, said he is most excited by the notion that mobile health can
apply elegant solutions to everyday problems for both patients and their
caregivers. “Sensors can be embedded into and onto and around everything to
understand really important and simple things like, ‘Did Grandma get out of bed
today?’” he said.
The nation’s largest companies are just as
eager as its smallest to explore these possibilities D’Erasmo says Humana’s
(https://www.humana. com/) home care division, which provides at home health
services for elderly patients, has experimented with placing sensors in
patients’ homes and using Skype or other virtual services to enable remote
caregivers to attend doctors’ visits with a loved one.
Pharmaceutical companies have also begun to
use mobile tech such as Fitbits or Garmin activity trackers to measure patient
data during clinical trials. These tools and other such devices might allow
researchers to constantly track vital signs, log a patient's’ heartbeat pattern
or trace the effects of a medicine, rather than only collecting this
information during a checkup.
Even though some companies have begun to use
trackers in their trials, the Food and Drug Administration has not yet approved
any drug based on a result measured by a mobile health device. Kara Dennis,
managing director of Medidata, (https://www.mdsol.com/en)which provides
software support for pharmaceutical companies conducting trials, predicts this
could soon change.
While she is optimistic about the future,
Dennis said that there is still a way to go to get there. “Mobile technology is
still very new in the clinical research space,” she said.
Additionally, a pharmaceutical company has a
far more rigorous standard for data collection than a consumer who is planning
their work out a device must be worn almost constantly in a clinical trial and
measure data with extreme precision. It’s also recommended that a device can be
worn in the shower which is not recommended (http://
help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/CanIswimorshowerwithmytracker)for
Fitbit and has a long battery life. “Those considerations become very serious
when you’re considering using it in clinical trials,” said Dennis.
A recent lawsuit
(http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/05/lawsuitsaysfitbitoverestimatessleepby67minutespernight/)
from a Florida man alleging Fitbit gadgets overestimate the amount of sleep
that wearers receive by 67 minutes per night are also problematic. “If you’re
overestimating sleep duration, we can’t use that in a trial,” Dennis said. “We
need to know how much the patient actually slept.”
Les Funtleyder, a portfolio manager at
Esquared Asset Management (http://www.esquaredcon - sulting.co.uk/Capabilities/business_consult
- ant_capabilities_asset_management.html), said investors would be wise to keep
a clear head when considering the potential of each new mobile health
application. He sees five or six mobile health companies seeking investment a
week and worries that many are overvalued. “I think mobile health is
reminiscent of a bubble,” he said. But “I don’t think they’re in a bubble yet.”
One of the current limitations, as Stoakes of
Startup Health sees it, is that each mobile health company is independently
trying to build its own hardware and software to deliver its services. The
arrival of platform tools such as Apple’s ResearchKit, which developers may
leverage to collect health data or conduct experiments, could absolve companies
of this need and allow them to focus on perfecting their product or service.
Paula Wilson, president of Joint Commission
International, (http://www.jointcommissioninternational.org/)
which provides accreditation for hospitals, says that while mobile health could
lead to great advances in healthcare, it will inevitably bring new risks. The
vast majority (http://www.ibtimes.com/datasecurity29millionpatient-recordscompromisedhealthcarebreachesstudy-shows1881245)
of major healthcare data breaches that have occurred in recent years took place
through electronic networks.
Still, Stoakes at StartUp Health believes that
these technologies will soon become an essential part of all healthcare
services. “Very soon, there won’t be a separate category called mobile health,”
he said. Instead, Stoakes said mobile devices will be fully integrated into the
way that healthcare is designed and delivered.
Amy Nordrum
Reporter, International Business Times
Amy Nordrum is a science/business writer at International Business Times. In the past, her work has been featured by Scientific American, Smithsonian Magazine, IEEE Spectrum and The Atlantic. Amy holds a master’s degree from the Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program at New York University.