In PwC's top health industry issues for 2015 report, do-it-yourself healthcare with consumer devices and mHealth have made the number one and number two spots respectively on the list.
Among the many hurdles integrating patient-collected data into clinical data, clinicians seem to be wary of using it to manage their own patients. When asked how comfortable they would be with using patient data streamed from various mHealth apps or devices for several clinical purposes:
74 percent were not comfortable using DIY technology tat can check for ear infection
53 percent were not comfortable using DIY technology that can analyze urine
48 percent were not comfortable using DIY technology that can monitor and check vital signs
While 86 percent of clinicians believe that mobile apps will become important to physicians for managing patient health over the next five years, the difference in current comfort with future perception of use is marked.
Right now, the top four mobile medical app categories used by patients include healthy eating (23 percent), dieting/weight loss (18 percent), exercise (18 percent) and health information/education (18 percent), according to the PwC report.
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