In the week when scientists claimed to have proven it wasindeed the chicken that came before the egg, I found a fascinating article by John Farrell on the Mobile Health Watch blog in which he expresses skepticism of the important contribution mHealth applications are making to mobile device appstores.
“But what about the app users? Are they truly health care consumers, purchasing apps and integrating them into their lifestyles? Or, are they merely consumers who—thanks to the advent of app stores—have essentially found their way into the mHealth Dept., where they can shop for all manner of applications, whether they utilize them or not?“
Isn’t it amazing that in this youthful industry we’ve already forgot why we’re already here? Let us not forget that not only are mHealth successes easy to find but “to call emergency services” is a leading (if not the top) reason why people started using mobiles in the first place and a key feature that contributed to the virtuous cycle of open market consumer innovation in connectivity/device capability. Without the sustainable business models created by users who adopted for “in case of emergency” use we definitely wouldn’t be in the position we’ve arrived at today where across the globe we have citizens using such standardised bleeding edge consumer devices.
Why in 2010 are we sceptical that consumers who are to be found within the “mHealth Dept” are just there inadvertantly? Surely we can see analogous demand levels in the statistics which show the consumer appetite for online health information (eg. more than half of Americans looked up Health information last year)?
My answer to John’s important question: “What are healthcare professionals observing in the field?”
I think it’s getting obvious that this horse has already bolted inspite of the lack of top down support and investment.
[...] services, to regional and global policy development. mHealth initiatives don’t just seek to wave a flag that mobiles can access emergency health services, but look to embed an entire ecosystem of health and wellness practices which as fostered in some [...]