By Sarianne Gruber
Twitter: @subtleimpact
In their most recent white paper, Assessing mHealth Apps in the Digital Health Maturity Index, Mobiquity, Inc., a mobile engagement provider, wanted to know which mobile health (mHealth) apps are working, which apps are not and what does it take for a health app to keep a head of the competition. Since 2011, Mobiquity has been creating innovative solutions that help clients design, develop and deploy custom mobile solutions. And in this saturated health-related app marketplace, Mobiquity has created a Digital Health Maturity Index to assess how these apps really deliver in terms of features for the consumer and what value they deliver for the healthcare businesses.
Mobiquity, wanted to know how these apps are impacting health, as well as who and how they are using them. Their “Appification of Health and Fitness” study uncovered noteworthy findings on health app usage:
- A promising 70% of participants regularly track calorie and physical activity data
- Though on the downside, even dedicated trackers rarely share the data obtained with their doctor
Mobiquity contends that despite high consumer engagement, without a data and knowledge exchange between patient and health care provider there is a lost “engagement opportunity with the potential to greatly benefit the healthcare community and patient’s long term health”.
A Digital Health Maturity Index
The Digital Health Maturity Index, a unique tool, aids in analyzing and benchmarking the successes and gaps within a mHealth application. To build the index, nine business aspects were defined: User Centered Design, Social Media Integration, Security and Privacy, Governance and Digital Center of Excellence, Integrated Health and Consumer Data, Big Data/Analytics, Sensor Integration, Rapid Innovation/Prototyping, Co-Innovation Ecosystems. Three functional categories, Business Impact, User Engagement and Reach Dimension were evaluated across the nine business schemes and used to categorize apps on a 0 to 4 level of maturity scale. The maturity index scales levels are: Level 0 apps having no digital health capability, Level 1 apps as a basic app with content, Level 2 apps having integrated multi-channel solutions, Level 3 apps having personalized, pervasive real-time solutions and Level 4 apps having innovation solutions and sustained impact. A detailed example is presented in Assessing mHealth Apps in the Digital Health Maturity Index.
A mHealth App Mobiquity Market Analysis
Wellness and Prevention Apps, Screening and Diagnostic Apps and Treatment and Management Apps are three categories each at a different stage of development.
- Wellness and Prevention App Leaders are MyFitnessPal, RunKeeper and iTriage. Key drivers to their success include consumer engagement, social media integration, app updates cloud support, sensor integration, partnerships and UX enhancements. Players in this space must continuously invent and reinvent.
- Screening and Diagnostics Apps Leaders are WebMD, ShareCare, AskMD, and ZocDoc. A challenge for these apps is the integration of accurate screening tools for self-diagnosis. Needed are sensor enabled devices to elevate data gathering capabilities so that these apps may be of better use to consumers, businesses and medical providers.
- Treatment and Management Apps, such as WellDoc and Propeller Health, are some of the more advanced apps in the market. Improving user experience UX remains a priority. Yet, it is the data entry that can be tedious and burdensome. Data entry automation could be met with an integration across users’ other data sources.
Mobiquity’s mHealth App Critical Success Factors
On a final note, Mobiquity recommends “Critical Success Factors”. Reaching and sustaining a higher level of Digital Health Maturity can be achieved with:
- Strategic partnerships
- Involving stake holders: caregivers, buyers, providers, pharmacies and medical resources
- User experience and personalization of that experience
- Integrating sensors- will augment data, it will be a more valuable user experience- more data collection and aggregation.
For details on Mobiquity’s research, please link to the white paper Assessing mHealth Apps in the Digital Health Maturity Index. Mobiquity is a mobile engagements provider with 12 offices across 4 countries. Their mission is to create innovative solutions that drive business value.