The majority of today’s mHealth smartphone applications fall into the category of general health tracking and fitness tools. Generally these apps have a low to medium sophistication level.
Chronically ill people have not yet been the focus of today’s app developers. This will change with the entrance of traditional health industry players into the mHealth app market.
With the potential for sophisticated monitoring, compliance, time-management and a host of other applications to improve healthcare delivery to chronically ill patients, mHealth solutions promise to bring significant advances in the management of chronic diseases. In addition the target group size is very impressive. According to the OECD and WHO there are more than 2 billion patients with chronic diseases worldwide.
Chronic disease is a major cost-driver in developed countries. In the US the cost of treating chronic disease constitutes is 83% of total Medicaid and 96% of the total Medicare expenditure (source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). In some countries healthcare expenditure on a person with one chronic condition is double that of expenditure on someone without a chronic condition.
From the data above, we can see why established healthcare players are bringing out first pilot apps.
Link to graph: http://www.research2guidance.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Market-potential-for-mHealth-blog-image.jpg
The graph illustrates market potential for mobile applications, specific for chronic diseases and the size of the overall addressable market for patients with chronic diseases today.
Amongst chronic diseases diabetes is ranked highest in terms of business potential for mHealth applications according to a global survey on mHealth.
There is supporting evidence that diabetes applications will become as popular as envisaged by the developers: target group size is growing, huge costs saving potential, geographical match, excellent use case potential, etc.
For a more detailed analysis on the mHealth market please have a look at our “Mobile Health Market Report 2010-2015”
Link to blog post: http://www.research2guidance.com/global-survey-results-220-million-diabetes-patients-are-the-main-target-for-mhealth-app-developers-in-the-next-5-years/
Link to diagram: http://www.research2guidance.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Market-potential-for-mHealth-blog-image.jpg
Twitter: Global survey results: 220m #diabetes patients main target for #mHealth #app #developers http://bit.ly/h1CXAR
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M-Health App Developers Set To Target 220 Million Diabetes Patients In The Next 5 Years (Global Survey Results)
January 24, 2011 at 11:27 AM EST
