Consumers are Surprisingly Positive About Embracing mHealth

The nature of healthcare is changing. It is projected that by 2015, there will be 500 million people using mobile health applications. As people increasingly seek web-based answers to health problems and mHealth apps become more common, it is easy to wonder how people really feel about the mHealth trend. Do people find it too impersonal? Too prone to error?

One health and well-being company decided to find out. Royal Philips Electronics released the findings of their U.S. survey, offering promising insights for those who are involved with driving mHealth technology.

Among the key findings of the survey, Royal Philips Electronics found:

• 11 percent of those surveyed believe that web-based health information has saved their lives or helped them to avoid serious health consequences, noting that without it, “they might already be dead or severely incapacitated”.
• 41 percent of those surveyed responded that they were “comfortable” using websites to check their symptoms.
• 27 percent of those surveyed said that they use applications, instead of going to the doctor, when they have a health problem.
• Over 33 percent of those surveyed responded that they believe that monitoring their own health through technology is “the key to living a long life”.

According to Dr. Eric Silfen, the chief medical officer of Philips Healthcare, the willingness of the American public to embrace mHealth holds a number of benefits, including lowering the cost of care. “Ultimately, the technological undercurrents of the pos-PC world—the power of many designer gadgets, cloud ecosystems, and mobile app computing—will hasten the personalization and partnerships that will transform sustainable medical care to the highest quality,” he said.

Although trusting eVisits to the doctor is something that some people will still be reticent to embrace, industry fears about whether or not people would respond positively to mHealth can be laid to rest, thanks to the insights found in this survey. As mHealth evolves, consumer trust and usage will only continue to grow, and has already had a positive reception in a very short time period.