Mobile healthcare (mHealth) is “the biggest technology breakthrough of our time [being used] to address our greatest national challenge”, said US Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius in her keynote address at the 2011 annual mHealth Summit in the Washington, DC area. Worldwide, the technology and its promise have moved up the healthcare agenda.
The interest is understandable. Increasingly ubiquitous and powerful mobile technology holds the potential to address long-standing issues in healthcare provision. However, such effervescence in a field with few proven business models suggests that, yet again, technology-driven hype may lead to expensive failures.
This Economist Intelligence Unit report, commissioned by PwC, examines the current state and potential of mHealth in developed and emerging markets, the ongoing barriers to its adoption and the implications for companies in the field. Based on the research, the key findings include:
Expectations are high for mHealth. Roughly one-half of patients surveyed for this report predict that mHealth will improve the convenience, cost and quality of their healthcare in the next three years (see “About the research”). Meanwhile, six in ten doctors and payers believe that its widespread adoption in their countries is inevitable in the near future. Yet most experts interviewed for this study, while also convinced that mHealth will eventually become an important part of care provision, expect that adoption will take time.
Healthcare’s strong resistance to change will slow adoption of innovative mHealth. New technology is not enough. Widespread adoption of mHealth will require changes in behaviour of actors who are trying to protect their interests. The challenge will be even greater for innovators because the improvements that mHealth can bring—such as patient-centred care and a greater focus on prevention—will involve disruption of how healthcare is provided. To succeed, innovators must manoeuvre through culturally conservative, highly regulated and fragmented yet often monopolistic systems that often provide contradictory incentives.
The diversity of interests at play makes an evolving landscape even more complex. Patients want more convenient provision of healthcare, but they also want greater control. For doctors, mHealth can help provide better patient care and ease their administrative headaches, but they are likely to resist the loss of power implicit in greater patient control. Payers already display interest in mHealth, and the economic pressure for more patient centred, preventive care is likely to drive them further towards the patient’s viewpoint.
Emerging markets are the trailblazers in mHealth. Patients in these markets are much more likely to use mHealth applications or services than those in developed countries. Similarly, more emerging-market doctors offer mHealth services than colleagues in developed countries, and more payers cover these costs. The ability of these countries to leap ahead lies in the paucity of existing healthcare: there is greater demand for change and, just as important, there are fewer entrenched interests to impede the adoption of new approaches.
Solutions, not technology, are the key to success. Widespread mHealth adoption requires services and products that appeal to current payers because patients, highly sensitive to price, will provide little income. Consumers’ sense of entitlement with regard to healthcare aggravates this price sensitivity. Accordingly, vendors must concentrate on solving payers’ problems. Technology is an essential, but not sufficient, tool in this endeavour.
