Survey indicates growing importance of mobile health apps

ANDOVER, Mass. — More than 10% of Americans consider Web-enabled, mobile health apps a part of their health care and key to living long lives, according to a new survey by a division of electronics manufacturer Philips.

Royal Philips Electronics commissioned Opinion Research to conduct a survey of 1,003 adults, finding that 11% said that were it not for Web-based health information, they might already be "dead or severely incapacitated."

"We are in the early stages of the Web-enabled, mHealth, mobile app world of healthcare delivery," Philips Healthcare chief medical officer Eric Silfen said. "Near-future apps will focus on tying together health information technologies, connecting with doctors, nurses, healthcare professionals and patients, all within a social context that facilitates shared medical decision making. This evolution will harken the new vital signs of the clinical times with technologies that help prevent medical errors, lower the financial and social cost of care, sustain a higher quality of medical practice and support an evidence-based standard for medicine in general."

The survey also found that a quarter of respondents use symptom-checker websites or home-based diagnosis technology as much as they visit the doctor, while another 27% use such applications instead of going to the doctor, and 41% said they were comfortable using websites to check their health symptoms. While 49% were comfortable with symptom checker technologies or home-based vital sign monitors automatically sharing information with their doctors, more than one-third believe technology that allows one to monitor personal health is now the key to living a long life.

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