Mobile marketing is soaring. Every day it is used to promote a wide range of articles, from cosmetics to real states. Mobile marketing is growing rampantly and although it is annoying to be constantly targeted by marketers using these intensive campaigns, it is also true that this massive flow of information allows consumers to be aware of new products and other innovations that are available in the market.
PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Health Research Institute Conducted research among physicians and consumers of health services to measure the acceptance of these mobile technologies that are designed to enhance remote contact of patients with physicians and other health care services providers.
The study shows that almost half of the consumers would pay for remote monitoring devices, patients with chronic diseases such as diabetes would be able to send information to their physicians, allowing them to monitor the status of important measurements such as glucose levels and take immediate actions when necessary. There is an important benefit to this mobile monitoring, mainly the convenience for physicians to make faster and more accurate decisions as they have access to real-time data. In addition medication and treatment management strategies might benefit from these remote interactions; physicians will be able to prescribe medication wirelessly, making the treatment process more efficient.
In addition to the market of remote monitoring devices which is calculated to be as much as 43 billion dollars, the convenience of this kind of remote patient-physician contact could represent significant savings in health care costs for thousands of individuals, who will save in face-to-face doctor appointments and also improve the use of physicians’ time. This remote monitoring will not necessarily substitute the personal interaction of patient with physician, but may result in a decrease of unnecessary visits and could be replaced by lower costs of medical services provided through mobile technology using a fixed periodical fee.
In spite of the obvious benefits of the utilization of this technology, issues of privacy/security represent continuing and significant concerns. There is concern that this information becomes available to insurance companies. Is it possible that the costs of insurance policies will be based on the results of data mining of confidential information made available in the cyberspace?
A serious question is whether this technology will result in the commodization of health care rather than being a professional service? Is it possible that physicians will urge patients to aquire remote monitoring services to patients who won’t be necessarily benefit from this technology?
Soon we will see the asthma and diabetes treatments marketed through SMS just like any any other product?
What do you think?
Sources
Health care unwired. New business models delivering care anywhere. Retrieved September 12, 2010.
Tsirulnik, Giselle. Mobile technology can lower healthcare costs: PricewaterhouseCoopers. Mobile Marketer website. Retrieved September 12, 2010.
Very interesting post.
ReplyDeleteAs a heavy user of mobile devices (smart phone and netbook) I'm always in search for new "cool" apps. I think some mobility with health matters will be interesting, maybe getting information about upcoming appointment from my doctors office, or a message that my test results are in. I'm not sure I would feel comfortable sharing more of my private information this way, but who thought we would share anything so easily online 10-15 years ago?