Digital health-care apps
Heart disease, diabetes, and lung disease are the three chronic diseases that have the most significant financial impact on the health-care industry. Research on these three chronic diseases reveals that less money would be spent if patients regularly took their medications and were routinely monitored for their vitals and symptoms. This lack of effective monitoring is accreting the burden on limited health-care resources. Nevertheless, recent achievements have been attained with the advent of digital health-care apps, which can monitor a patient’s health vitals and provide helpful alerts when it is time to take medication.
Such digital health solutions are gaining traction in chronic disease management (CDM), specifically in diseases like:
Diabetes: In collaboration with the American Medical Association, Intermountain Healthcare is running a test pilot of an online program for Omada Health patients at risk for diabetes.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD): A health application called COPD Co-Pilot has been developed by Temple University’s Temple Lung Center to help measure how serious symptoms are compared with a patient’s baseline data.
High blood pressure: Rush University Medical Center is working with Proteus Digital Health to augment users’ compliance with blood-pressure medication using a system called Proteus Discover.
Heart disease: The Mayo Clinic published a study in the Journal of Clinical Investigations wherein researchers successfully tested a health app that provided information about healthy lifestyles and the ability for cardiac rehab patients to report their dietary and exercise habits.
Four-Step Process
Despite these developments in the digital health-care industry, health tech apps on their own may be inadequate in delivering a comprehensive solution to the problems faced in CDM. The Harvard Business Review believes that in order for CDM apps to succeed and create user retention, they must employ a four-step process called the “adopt-diffuse-use-improve” cycle, in which:App developers make a compelling argument for clients to adopt a new digital health product
The developers work to diffuse the app and convince users to give it a try
The app achieves a sustained level of usage, preferably integrated within the natural flow of the user’s daily activities. The app should constantly be improved upon.
Playpal is one such example of a digital health solution that has recently emerged on the mHealth market. The Playpal Platform is a digital health marketplace that unifies global health IoT devices, apps, and stakeholders to create interoperability in the health market and make health-management seamless. Playpal’s engine follows the principles of the “adopt-diffuse-use-improve” process by presenting tailored insights to individuals to better manage and preempt their health outcomes.
As the number of chronic disease cases increases, technological solutions are more important than ever; holistic Platforms like Playpal are making strides in the health tech industry by providing significant levels of support to the thousands of people with chronic diseases.
