The smartwatch is a fad, but developers demonstrating clinical use of tools will be the "Holy Grail" in pushing mHealth to the next level, according to a clinical associate professor of medicine at the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine.
The road ahead is bright for mHealth wearables, David Lee Scher, M.D., said in an interview at mHealth News, but the smartwatches that are now getting big attention won't be in the mix.
In addition, Scher, a cardiac electrophysiologist with The Heart Group of Lancaster General Health and director at DLS Healthcare Consulting, sees remote monitoring prospering given the growing trend of home treatment and desire by providers to decrease hospital readmissions.
Consumers are likely only to jump on the wearables bandwagon given incentives; they also want greater sophistication in devices and apps, FierceMobileHealthcare has reported. Thirty percent of online consumers would embrace a healthcare data service in exchange for lower healthcare costs.
But currently, about three quarters of U.S. adults are not using fitness devices or apps for tracking diet, weight or exercise, according to a Technology Advice survey.
Scher expects the biggest mHealth innovation ahead will be related to data analysis tools.
"Analytics which analyze data from the EHR are the most useful and potentially beneficial technology tools available today," Scher told mHealth News. "They aren't as sexy as smartphone watches and work behind the scenes, but they translate static and often hidden data into information which can be used to help individual patients as well as populations of similar patients."
For more information:
- read the mHealth News article
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