Providers are seeking value in mHealth, but better predictive analytics may be required to make patient-generated health data truly effective.
Providers and patients are both finding value in mHealth and telehealth technologies that help turn smartphones and tablets into miniature laboratories and instant healthcare delivery portals, says a new survey and report by PricewaterhouseCooper. Apps and mobile devices are instrumental for improving care coordination, raising the level of patient engagement, and managing chronic diseases, but the technologies could be made even more effective with better use of predictive analytics and data mining to help generate more actionable insights for providers.
Mobile technologies are changing the way providers deliver healthcare as patients demand more in the way of convenience, transparency, and efficiency. As the industry turns towards pay-for-performance reimbursements that make high patient satisfaction a must-have for healthcare organizations, providers have been turning to mHealth and remote care with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Reimbursements for telehealth services remain a point of contention, while privacy and security concerns are widespread for consumers as well as physicians.
Forty-five percent of providers cited privacy worries as a top reason why they would be hesitant to adopt mHealth, while a lack of reimbursement turned 39% off the notion. Just a quarter were concerned about the necessary workflow adjustments or the cost of adopting mobile health, while only 14% cited the difficulty of learning the technology. A mere 15% said that their patients aren’t showing any interest in mHealth, which seems about right as patients flock to wearable devices and mHealth app downloads in droves.
About half of patients are willing to trust mobile health tools as much as their doctors, the survey found, whether it’s checking their own vital signs or doing an at-home ECG, or even checking for ear infections. Physicians are somewhat less likely to believe that do-it-yourself diagnostics are reliable, but 40% routinely monitor patient data generated by a mobile device or wearable technology, and 83% of those physicians find that patient-generated health data (PGHD) is at least somewhat useful when it comes to making treatment decisions.
Additionally, physicians seem to have a more positive perception of mHealth as a way to improve care coordination than patients do. While 79% of providers believe that mHealth is important for ensuring the coordination of care, just 47% of consumers believe the same. However, fifty-six percent of patients would be comfortable with sharing their data between healthcare organizations if it could help produce more coordinated care. Just 30% of providers are currently doing so.
As the healthcare system tries to find its way out of its currently fragmented state, organizations believe that better clinical analytics and data mining of PGHD produced by mobile devices will help to solve the problem of having too much data without enough insight. Providers envision being able to use the constant vital sign monitoring of a wearable fitness tracker to predict imminent downturns for a patient with COPD, for example, or use information from a diabetes monitoring app to adjust medications or call a patient in for a dietary coaching session in between scheduled visits. That will require a much more sophisticated way of ingesting, storing, analyzing and reporting on massive volumes of PGHD without disrupting the provider’s already strained relationship with her EHR.
In the meantime, as new predictive analytics technologies are being developed, providers are turning to physician extenders, including nurses and physician assistants, to take on some of the duties that make mHealth a viable solution for care coordination and population health. Organizations where physician extenders make up more than 10% of the provider’s staff are significantly more likely to believe that mHealth can help to coordinate care, see more potential in apps for patients, and were also more likely to be using mobile devices as part of their daily routine already.
The report recommends that providers who want to get a head start on embracing mHealth as a key feature of the future healthcare ecosystem focus on developing new workflows and try to foster a culture of excitement and acceptance around using mobile devices and patient-facing apps as tools for better coordination and care. Providers may also wish to invest in patient education to help consumers separate useful apps from insignificant ones, while taking time within the organization to decide what mHealth-based care strategies to pursue in the future.
By; Jennifer Bresnick
Originally published at http://healthitanalytics.com
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