MHealth Applications: A Survey

MCOL and Payers & Providers jointly sponsored a survey of healthcare professionals during May on the healthcare sector's expectations regarding the utilization of mobile health (mHealth) applications. An exclusive report on the survey findings follows.

Participants were asked to respond to six items:

1. Categorize your organization.
2. Does your organization offer a mHealth application?
3. Have you personally ever used a mHealth application?
4. To what overall degree do you perceive mHealth apps are currently helping healthcare organizations that offer them, getting value for doing so?
5. To what overall degree do you perceive consumers that use mHealth apps are currently benefitting in their healthcare and health coverage for doing so?
6. What do you perceive the potential value of mHealth for Stakeholders and Consumers within five years?
7. Which provisions of the Affordable Care Act do you feel has been the most problematic with respect to implementation and achieving its objectives?

Of those industry professionals successfully surveyed, vendors/others constituted the largest group, 42.9% of the total. Providers constituted the second largest group, accounting for 37.1%. Payers constituted 20% of the total.

Findings:

Thirty-seven percent of respondents' organizations offer a mHealth application, and another 31% do not yet but plan to. Twenty-three percent don't offer an application and have no plans to do so, and another 9% were not sure.

Providers are the invested stakeholders, with 57% indicating their organization currently offers a mHealth app.

But the rub is that while offering mHealth apps is now mainstream, getting stakeholders to personally use them is another matter.When asked, "have you personally ever used a mHealth application?" 63% responded No; 34% responded Yes and 3% were unsure. Among payers, 84% indicated they had not tried an app.

So to what overall degree of value did respondents say mHealth apps are delivering to healthcare organizations that offer them?

Sixty-three percent said they offered value, while 37% percent felt they were of little value.

Conversely, do stakeholders feel consumers are currently benefiting from these apps? Forty-three percent felt they were of little value ,while 57% felt there was a benefit offered.

But stakeholders were more in agreement about the long-term outlook. When asked “what do you perceive the potential value of mHealth for Stakeholders and Consumers within five years,” 51% felt there would be some significant value, and 29% said there would be some value.Only 20% felt there would be little value. Among the groups of those surveyed, payers were the most pessimistic, with only 29% stating there would be significant value.