The Explosion In Health Apps, And How They're Disrupting The Gigantic, Lethargic Health Care Industry

In the United States alone, health spending places the domestic health care industry among the five or six largest economies in the world.

Apps and devices that allow consumers to take charge of their own treatment and prevention are trying to turn this industry on its head, taking health care out of hospitals and doctor's offices, and putting more power in consumer hands.

The sheer size of the health care market suggests there's a huge opportunity for mobile applications and customized, purpose-built devices.

There are already roughly 100,000 health applications available in major app stores, and the top 10 mobile health applications generate up to 4 million free and 300,000 paid daily downloads. Consumer adoption of mobile health apps will proceed apace.

In a recent report, BI Intelligence explores this already sizable market, $20 billion or more by 2018, and the enormous potential in mobile health.

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We dig into the top trends in mobile medicine:

• The top devices and applications that will disrupt legacy medical practices
• Rates of consumer adoption and the public's attitudes to mobile health
• The dominance of patient self-management apps and devices
• The perspectives from across the medical profession, and key regulatory issues
• The interplay of smartphones and tablets with existing medical equipment categories
• The market's future growth path, and the three stages of mobile health development

The report includes nine key charts and datasets highlighting key revenue trends in mobile health, and spotlighting emerging opportunities. Subscriber also receive full access to the BI Intelligence library of over 100 in-depth reports on mobile and the wider tech industry, and hundreds of datasets they can put to use.

We also look at some key drivers of mobile health's explosive growth:

• The key to all the enthusiasm for mobile medicine is that the health care industry is cost-obsessed. Anything that tamps down on out-of-control cost structures will elicit investor interest
• Remote monitoring means physicians can ensure that patients who are in their clinic offices or hospital waiting rooms need to be there, and can avoid having to spend half of their day attending false alarms
• Regulators such as the U.S. Food And Drug Administration have generally given a warm reception to mobile health apps, but regulatory uncertainty is still a factor
• There's a great opportunity for intermediaries who might vet mobile health and wellness apps in the app markets, to weed out "quack apps," and evaluate others for their beneficial impact
• A recent study suggested that 90% of chronic patients would readily accept a prescription for a mobile app compared to just 66% willing to accept a prescription for medication.

We also discuss mobile health's relationship with the burgeoning industry in wearable fitness and activity trackers, as well as its intersection with enterprise wellness programs - as companies try to control insurance premiums, employee absenteeism and lost productivity due to chronic health issues.

In full, the report answers these questions:

To what degree will inefficient and burdensome back-office and patient-processing be upended by mobile apps?

Will medical technology adapt to be used in tandem with smartphones, or will stand-alone new mobile medical gadgets be the norm?

Finally, we consider how mobile health is already moving beyond the development of devices and apps to monitor glucose or perform ultrasounds, and to a new data-focused stage where the holy grail will be integrating disparate streams of medical data from individuals and groups.

The report also includes a look at the tech-savviness and data-driven professional outlook of physicians, which makes them primed to adopt mobile health: indeed, physicians seem more receptive of mobile health and remote patient management than patients themselves.

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