3Cinteractive LLC's List: 2011 mHealth

Give patients money, coaching and a mobile phone and you just might be able to get them up off the couch and eating better. That's the upshot of a recently published study in the Archives of Internal Medicine. The 20-week study asked patients to upload their data about diet choices and exercise levels daily. They contacted health coaches by phone or email as needed for support, motivation, or to ask questions.

It's not just doctors demanding smartphones app and access anymore. A new survey by healthcare publisher Lippincott Williams & Wilkins finds that 85% nurses want smartphone access to the drug guides they've been carrying around in their pockets for years.

Verizon Chairman and CEO Lowell McAdam addressed the World Health Care Congress and pledged to keep Verizon on the front lines of mobile’s connection to healthcare in the 21st century.

According to a new report from comScore, the number of people in the US who access health information from their mobile devices is on the rise. During the months of September, October, and November last year, an average of 16.9 million people used mobile phones to access health information.

The mobile health app market will grow to $392 million over the next five years, a 70 percent increase, according to new data from research firm Frost & Sullivan.

Healthline, a consumer health search engine, published a list of 2011’s most-searched health and medical terms via both desktop computers or laptops (web searches) and via mobile devices (mobile search).

Nearly 70 percent of residents are using their smartphones for clinical purposes, compared to just under 40 percent for physicians who have been in practice for 15 years or more.

Nearly every respondent in the 1st Annual HIMSS Mobile Technology Survey, which was released Monday, reports that clinicians at their organization have accessed information through a mobile device. Only 38 percent of the respondents, however, say they have a policy in place that regulates the use of mobile devices and outlines a mobile strategy.

The first-ever mHIMSS Mobile Technology Survey, released Monday at the mHealth Summit in National Harbor, Md., revealed that 38 percent of healthcare organizations had a formal strategy or policy regarding the use of mobile devices. But another 51 percent said they were developing a policy, according to the new mHIMSS, a subgroup of HIMSS that officially launched Monday.

Healthcare providers in the U.S. will spend more than $4.4 billion on mobile point-of-care technology in 2015, up from almost $2.8 billion in 2010, representing an annual growth rate of 9.9 percent, according to a new forecast from Intel and research firm IDC Health Insights.

The Hispanic market in the U.S. is growing at an impressive rate. The U.S. Census reports that Hispanics are the fastest-growing demographic segment in the U.S .

Pharmaceutical companies lag in using mobile as a way of reach their audiences - both consumer and healthcare professional (HCP). Even as budgets in digital pharmaceutical marketing are increasing, access to convenient and helpful information on the mobile web has fallen significantly behind.

Staying healthy in the United States is expensive. In fact, in 2009, the average annual cost of health care was $7,960 per person -- two and a half times what it was in Japan for the same year.

ABI Research's newest study, "Mobile Devices and mHealth," predicts the overall mobile health app market will nearly quadruple to $400 million by the year 2016, up from $120 million in 2010.

Two-thirds of physician practices have mobile technology as a top, or mid-level priority through 2012, according to a new study by research firm CompTIA.

38 percent of physicians with smartphones use medical apps apps on a daily basis, with that number increasing to 50 percent in the next twelve months.

In September 2010 Pew found that about 9 percent of all adult mobile phone users in the US had downloaded an app that "helped them track or manage their health." In its most recent survey in August 2011 Pew found that about 11 percent of all adult cell phone users having downloaded an app that helps them manage their health.

New tools and new uses for consumer-focused apps are quickly putting mobile devices into surgeons' hands, both figuratively and literally.

A study by the Consumer Electronics Association found that 36% of consumers say they want to be able to send information to their doctor wirelessly; 33% want to manage their health records online;
32% want to have telehealth visits with their doctors.

With the birth of the world's 7 billionth child this month, and more than 5 billion mobile phone subscriptions, the mHealth Alliance highlights critical questions about the role of mobile technology in improving health outcomes.