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The Mobile eHealth Revolution

21 Aug
The Mobile eHealth Revolution

The mobile e-health landscape is about to be transformed. We are now embarking on an era where consumerisation will drive the proliferation of integrated mobile medical health.

There are already a staggering number of healthcare apps available to consumers, but the piece of the puzzle that will take consumerised healthcare to another level is the integration and usability of applications, systems and devices across the full spectrum of care.

Research suggests that smartphone and tablet shipments are still on the rise. Another metric on the rise relates to the number of seniors going online. In a recent article from Senior Housing News, 71% of seniors go on-line every day.  In addition, tablet ownership among seniors has risen from 2% in 2010 to 25% in 2014. According to the study, the number of seniors going online from their phone has quadrupled from 7% in 2009 to 29% in 2014.

Not only do the families of seniors want to be connected and involved in care, it’s the seniors themselves who are becoming engaged in mobile and internet connectivity.

Further to this, data published on the Intel Healthcare Innovation Barometer demonstrates that we are more ready than ever to embrace technology in monitoring and maintaining our health.  The Intel study showed that:

  • People are more willing to anonymously share their health records or genetic information than their banking information or phone records.
  • Seventy-two percent are receptive to communication technologies that allow them to remotely connect to their doctor.
  • Almost half of respondents (43 percent) globally would trust themselves to monitor their own blood pressure and other basic vitals.
  • Fifty-three percent of people say they would trust a test they personally administered as much or more than if performed by a doctor.

It’s been no secret that Samsung, WebMD, Apple and Google are all investing heavily into health. Their aim is to help consumers see all their health and wellness data in one place, and provide both platform and integration capabilities into the consumer space. The term “ubiquitous connectivity” is often used in this situation; where mobile platforms are used to integrate health data from disparate sources to provide people with a complete integrated view of their health.

The two dominant players in the mobile space are Apple (iOS) and Samsung (Android). They are both ramping up investment from a device and application perspective.  Looking first at the devices, both companies are making use of an increased number of device sensors.  The iPhone had 3 sensors in 2007 – accelerometer, proximity, ambient light. In 2013 the iPhone 5s had 5 sensors, adding a 3-axis gyro and fingerprint sensor. The Samsung Galaxy S in 2010 had 3 sensors – accelerometer, proximity and compass, whereas the 2014 Galaxy S5 has 10 sensors adding gyro, fingerprint, barometer, hall, gesture, heart rate, ambient light.

Secondly, Apple and Google are in a race to have the health and fitness platform of choice.  The Apple Health platform (HealthKit) allows apps that provide health and fitness services to share their data with the new Health app and with each other. A user’s health information is stored in a centralized and secure location and the user decides which data should be shared with your app. Independent programmers can develop additional apps to integrate with Apple Health.

In addition, Apple Health:

  • Displays personal biometric data (heart rate, calories, blood sugar, and cholesterol) from other fitness devices (eg JawBone, Glocose Meter).
  • Provides a single app that collates all the data in an easy to read dashboard.
  • Allows users to share information with doctors and other healthcare professionals.
  • Enables health providers to take advantage of the sensors in iPhone 6 and the iWatch (coming soon).
  • Will soon allow apps to sync with providers electronic health care records, with the aim of seamless integration.

There is no doubt that Apple aims to be the “hub” for health care data. The Apple alliance with IBM will also lead to a significant influx of healthcare mobile apps for the iPhone and iPad.

Google has announced “Google Fit”, which is a health platform similar to Apple Health Kit that allows various apps to share health data for individual users to create a complete picture of their fitness. Whilst the open platform is soon to be released, it looks set to provide developers a single set of API’s to access and store fitness data from apps and sensors. Like Apple, this will eliminate the complexity of accessing multiple sources of information to provide a unified view of fitness activity & overall health.

With the increasing number of seniors going on line and their growing acceptance of technology to help manage and enhance health outcomes, combined with the development of platforms that bring all health data together by integrating apps, hardware and systems, we are positioned for a transformation in electronic healthcare opportunities and management.

So where does this leave us as Healthcare and IT leaders?

  • It’s time for a strategy refresh!!! People of all ages (including the older folk) are ready to embrace technology to improve and maintain their health. Ignore these trends at your own peril, and instead look to develop strategies that leverage mobile health app platforms. Depending on your situation, you may need to weigh up the benefits of building your own independent app versus building an app on an existing health platform.
  • Consider the opportunities for integrated medical records. Look at opportunities to use these mobile platforms to provide a more integrated solution that, at the end of the day, will ultimately assist the end user to view all their medical data in one place.
  • A greater number of sensors and integration points results in more data. As vast amounts of this user-generated data is collected there will be opportunities to monetize that data.
  • Telehealth, remote monitoring, telecare – Patient care will become less complex and more affordable with an increased number of devices and software able to connect and integrate seamlessly.
  • Issues around security, privacy, consent and ethics still need to be considered.

For more information, please feel free to contact me.

iwatch

 

 
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Posted by on August 21, 2014 in e-health, mobility, strategy

 

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Key Strategic Considerations for 2014/15

16 Jul

Arguably the three key players in the global ICT research and analytics space are Gartner, Forrester and IDC. These three companies undertake vast amounts of research and analysis pertaining to current and future trends and predictions for ICT and business environments. Throughout the course of any given year, these well respected organisations release their analysis, insights and predictions that every organisation should consider as part of their strategy and planning.

In evaluating and cross referencing the publically available information that has been released from these key players over the last 12 months, there are four high level overlapping themes that emerge which are common across all three organisations.

These are:

  • Cloud
  • Internet of Things (everything)
  • Big Data
  • Mobility

Whilst these themes are high level and of little surprise to many, they provide insight into technologies and strategies that every organisation should consider when undertaking technology research, planning and innovation initiatives. The following content provides some snippets of these key themes…

 

1.  Cloud

Gartner

  • “Enterprises should look to model themselves off of the cloud leaders Amazon, Google & Salesforce. IT organizations should align with and emulate the processes, architectures, and practices of these leading cloud providers.”

Forrester

  • “Public Cloud will be the default backbone for the Internet of Things”.
  • Forrester predicts that Software as a Service will become the new de-facto for buying new applications.

IDC

  • The worldwide revenue from public IT cloud services grew four times more than predicted.
  • “By 2015, one of every seven dollars spent on packaged software, server and storage offerings will be through the Public Cloud”.

 

2. Internet of Things (everything)

Gartner

  • “The Internet is expanding into enterprise assets and consumer items such as cars and televisions. The so called “Internet of Things” will be succeeded by the “Internet of Everything.”

Forrester

  • “Sensors & devices will draw ecosystems together”.
  • “The Internet-of-Things will move from hype to reality with the ubiquity of connectivity and proliferation of devices, and wearable computing will go from niche to broader use”.

IDC

  • “The global Internet of Things market is expected to grow by more than $5 trillion over the next six years”.
  • IDC research predicts “that the global IoT market would hit $7.1 trillion by 2020, as people around the world – and particularly in developed nations – develop an affinity for full-time connectivity”.

 

3. Big Data

Gartner

  • “Big Data – information of extreme size, diversity and complexity – is everywhere and is destined to help organisations drive innovation by gaining new and faster insight into their customers.

Forrester

  • “Firms that embrace big data concepts are creating the next generation smart systems. Cheaper, more agile, collaborative, and adaptive methods for analytics and data sharing are key. Important to design “predictive apps able to sense their environment and respond in real-time, anticipate user action, and meet users in their moment of need.
    • Mobile contextual data will offer deep customer insights and is a key driver of big data.

IDC

  • IDC expects the Big Data technology and services market to achieve a compound annual growth rate of 39.4%, or about 7 x the overall ICT market.

 

4. Mobility

Gartner

  • For mobile application environments, Gartner for 2014 predicts the future lies in HTML5 and the browser .
  • With more users wanting to work across multiple devices, Gartner recommend app developers work to create “building blocks” that can be assembled to fit the needs of different devices.
  • Gartner predicts there will be more popularity in smaller, more targeted apps than more comprehensive, one-size fits all apps.

Forrester

  • Leading organisations are moving to deliver mobile, cloud and big data solutions more readily. Contextual data will offer deep customer insights and is a key driver of big data.
  • Competitive advantage in mobile will shift from experience design to big data and analytics.

IDC

  • By 2015, the worlds mobile worker population will reach 1.3 billion.
  • Nearly 1 billion smartphones will be distributed globally in 2015.
  • Predicts Windows Phone will capture the number 2 spot in market share by 2015

 

Some other interesting information that was released…

  • API’s will become the digital glue by providing open access to useful functionality through network-based services.
  • The smart machine era will be the most disruptive in the history of IT. This will include the proliferation of: contextually aware, intelligent personal assistants; smart advisors; global industrial systems; autonomous vehicles.
  • Gartner statistics predict 3-D printing to grow 75 percent in 2014 alone, with the number of unit shipments doubling in 2015. 3-D printing is a real, viable and cost-effective means to reduce costs through improved designs, streamlined prototyping and short-run manufacturing.

The above content provides just a fraction of the available information released by Gartner, Forrester and IDC, however when all major research companies are banging on the same drum, we should all sit up and take notice.

 
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Posted by on July 16, 2014 in strategy

 

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e-Health and Mobility – Strategy in a Nutshell

30 Nov

There are some staggering statistics recently released by Forbes regarding smartphones and apps. According to Forbes (www.forbes.com) there will be 1 billion smartphones sold in 2013, which is twice the number of PC’s predicted to be sold that year.  By 2016 there will be 10 billion mobile internet devices used globally, which is 50 times the size it is today.  Between 2010 and 2011 the time spent on mobile apps began to outpace the time spent on the desktop or mobile Web.  In the same time period there was a 91% increase in the time users spent on mobile applications. By 2015, mobile application development projects targeting smartphones and tablets will out-number native PC projects by a ratio of 4-1. Between 2009 and 2014 the market for cloud-based mobile apps is projected to increase by nearly 90%.

So what does all this mean ???

The mobile revolution is well and truly here. Organisations of all sizes need to have developed a solid and robust mobile strategy, or face being left behind by clients and competitors.  Whilst there is still some contention over the best strategic approach to mobile application development, there is no doubt that mobile applications are front and centre in leveraging market opportunities, client engagement, process efficiencies, and strategic innovation.

In a recent blog post I proposed the inclusion of a Mobile Enterprise Application Platform (or MEAP) as an integral part of any mobile strategy. Of course, this particular strategy depends on the nature of the organisation and its key mobility objectives; however MEAP should not be overlooked when considering a long term view to deployment of multiple different mobile applications, using multiple back-end systems, across any device.

For medium to large sized healthcare organisations, a MEAP based mobile strategy has several advantages over a natively developed application, which is often built with a pre-defined range of objectives, or based on one back-end system.  In this scenario, a mobile platform approach is superior because it:

–          Enables the organisation to customise a solution into fit exact requirements, tailored to the business needs and processes

–          Can provide a competitive advantage, as no one else has that particular mobile application

–          Ensures that changes to the mobile solution are immediate, flexible and more cost effective

–          Is not restricted by the type of mobile device. Mobile platform applications built using HTML5 ensure availability on any mobile device

–          Aligns to organisational “bring your own device” policies (if applicable)

–          Ensures that any development code (apps or API’s) can be re-used to help build other apps

–          Fits into the organisations long term strategies and e-health vision to provide mobile solutions for other uses, for example

      • Bedside medication management
      • Bedside electronic progress notes and electronic care planning
      • Capturing of client and staff incidents, risks, compliance and improvement initiatives
      • Mobile business intelligence and analytics
      • Mobile clinical assessments
      • Information management (eg, mobile access to policies or corporate documents)
      • Others ???

The above examples are likely to need data integrated from multiple in-house systems, which plays into the hands of a mobile platform. While organisations may not require mobility solutions for all the above examples right now, establishing a mobile platform caters for immediate AND long-term organisational use of mobility, even if the future state is not known.  The mobility platform approach has already harnessed recognition across all the major ICT industry research groups including Gartner and Forrester, and is a key component of the ICT Strategy toolkit.

 
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Posted by on November 30, 2012 in e-health, mobility

 

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Mobile app strategy – what approach is right for you ?

28 Sep

The mobile application revolution is here.  Apple’s app store reached 25 billion downloads this year and offers more than 700,000 apps. In addition, there are more than 600,000 apps available on the android store. Organisations are realising huge potential by utilising apps to entice customers, create market awareness, provide information, remain relevant, be competitive, increase efficiencies, and enhance productivity.  With the popularity and promise of mobile applications, organisations who fail to have a defined mobile strategy will not realise the competitive edge that come with the mobile application revolution.

A key part of an organisations mobile strategy is consideration for how mobile and web applications can be built and delivered. The three most popular approaches are:

1.  Native App

  • A native application is specifically developed for a particular device and mobile operating system (eg, the app is solely developed for either android, apple, blackberry, or windows devices/systems). Native apps provide the best user experience, performance, and access to device functions (eg camera, contacts, etc)

2.  Mobile Web

  • Mobile web apps can run in most browsers on most devices. For example, a web app for an iphone would run in Safari. A web app for a windows mobile phone would run in Internet Explorer. The disadvantage is that they are limited by the capabilities of the browsers they run in, so are currently unable to access all the features and functions on the local device (eg camera, geolocation, etc). The app itself isn’t actually downloaded onto the device, so there is no software or app to install. Mobile web apps have inferior performance compared to native apps.

3.  Hybrid

  • Hybrid apps provide the best of both worlds. Like mobile web apps, hybrid apps can run in most browsers on most devices on the single code base, and gives access to all of the device features.
 

Native

Mobile Web

Hybrid
App performance

Excellent

Good

Very Good
Development speed

Difficult

Fast

Moderate
Can run on multiple devices / platforms

No

Yes

Yes
Device access (camera, gyroscope, accelerometer, etc)

Full access

Partial Access

Full Access
Offline access

Yes

Yes

Yes
Reuse source code for other applications

No

Yes

Yes
Allows for “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD)

No

Yes

Yes
Advantages Great performance.

Rich user interface

Can use all device features

 App runs on any device

Fast development

Simple maintenance

No need to install new software

Updates appear automatically

All users on same version

 App runs on any device

Fast development

Can use all device features

All users on same version
Disadvantages One app developed per platform/device

Users must manually download & install app updates

Users may ignore updates, resulting in different app versions

 Has limited device access

Slower performance

 Very good performance, but not as good as Native

The most appropriate mobile development approach for an organisation depends on the requirements and intended use of the app. As discussed in an earlier blog, research firm Gartner developed a concept called “the rule of three”, where they encourage companies to consider the mobile platform (web/hybrid) approach to mobility when they need their mobile solutions to:

–          Support three or more mobile business applications

–          Support three or more mobile operating systems

–          Integrate with at least three back-end data sources

So the choice of app development strategy you make depends on what you wish to do with the app, your organisations long term vision, the underlying business and functional requirements and intended use of the app.

 
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Posted by on September 28, 2012 in mobility

 

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Do we really need to upgrade to the iPhone 5 ?

19 Sep

It’s that time of year when employees work phones take a swim in the pool, get run over by the car, eaten by the dog or are accidently dropped from a great height. Yes, the new iteration of the iPhone is soon to be released, and employees will be keen to get their hands on the latest smartphone from Apple. Whether many of us like it or not, with each new release of the iphone or ipad, organisations are becoming more entrenched with these devices. A survey from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners found that 20% of consumers who brought the 3rd generation iPad plan to use the device for business. So it’s only a matter of time before the iPhone 5 makes its way into organisations.

The question is, will the iPhone 5 actually be better for business ?

With a faster processer, more memory and a bigger (4 inch) screen, you may argue that we will be more easily able to consume corporate data. A bigger screen will definitely help with looking at corporate information, business data, dashboards, emails, analytics (not to mention games and the internet). The iPhone 5 is also more capable of streaming media and consuming media-rich mobile apps, and is a more robust and sturdy device thanks to the aluminum backing (which may or may not help with breakages when the iPhone 6 is released !!!).

Are these improvements enough to justify the price premium over purchasing a iPhone 4 or iPhone 4s ?

The premium we currently pay is around $250 for the honor of having a iPhone 5 rather than an iPhone 4. The answer relates to many factors including how the device is used, the content that is consumed on the device and the processes/rules in place around purchasing. An iPhone 5 will certainly satisfy the hunger of those Executives who relish new technology, however making the switch is most likely to be a decision based on individual business circumstances. It may be challenging for organisations to justify the price premium against the benefits received for moving to the iPhone 5.

 
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Posted by on September 19, 2012 in mobility

 

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Consumerisation of Telehealth

02 Aug

According to a 2010 study by Access Economics, Telehealth is a subset of e-health that includes the application of IT and telecommunications for diagnostic and treatment services, educational and support services and the organisation and management of health services.

Looking at this wide definition, it is interesting to examine the consumerisation of telehealth, and the role being played within the mobile applications space for every-day users. According to MobiHealthNews latest report, there are more than 10,000 “medical” apps available for iPhones, Android, Blackberry, Nokia, Palm, etc. Whilst the largest group of consumer health apps are cardio fitness apps, there are also thousands more apps that fit into the “health & fitness” category that are not actually health, medical or fitness related. Despite this, the quantity of health apps for consumers is growing at a steady rate.

Popular health apps are used for counting calories, gauging nutrition, tracking workouts, calculating body mass index and quitting smoking. Our humble smartphone device offers a relatively low-cost and real-time method to assess disease, movement, images, behaviour, social interactions, and a host of other health related information. Much like the consumerisation of smartphones into businesses, there is also a gradual consumerisation of telehealth via smartphones.

There is significant further potential in using smartphones to improve the health and wellbeing of clients. Remote monitoring, at home triage services, teleconsultations, medication management, outpatient services – could all contribute to improving health related outcomes.

Unfortunately there are still many obstacles in the way that is preventing higher penetration and enhanced mobile application services to clients. Cost, usability, security, privacy all play a role, however the role of mobile apps in healthcare isn’t set to disappear any time soon, so it may pay to embrace this technology and plan it’s place in your strategy, rather than hoping for a fast exit.

 
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Posted by on August 2, 2012 in Uncategorized

 

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