Patients are increasingly using mobile and online services to monitor their health — half use smartphones for a health function.
A study from Manhattan Research found that mobile is the fastest-growing sector of the digital health market. Although 86 percent of patients use the Internet for health monitoring, half are mobile users of some kind. Two-thirds use social media for health information, one-third communicate digitally with their doctors and three-quarters interact with online pharmaceutical resources, according to MobiHealthNews.
People with chronic conditions use mobile health more to monitor their health — while only 20 percent of people say it is essential for managing their care, that number goes up to 32 percent for people with diabetes and 39 percent for MS patients.
Monique Levy, vice president of research at Manhattan Research, said at the ePharma summit in New York City that pharmaceutical companies need to optimize mobile apps to address patients' specific needs.
"We've shown again and again that patients are not only digitally engaged for health, but they are so throughout the patient journey, and mobile is really driving that," Levy said. "We used to have the sense that people would go online when they had symptoms, and then go to the doctor and then through the traditional medical funnel. With mobile they're online at multiple decision points in the journey."