How Smartphones Are Changing
Health Care for Consumers and Providers

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn,
THINK-Health and Health Populi blog

The recent adoption and use of smartphones by consumers and providers of health care is the focus of a timely report prepared for the California Healthcare Foundation by frequent Pipeline guest columnist Jane Sarasohn-Kahn. The uptake of this technology is rapid: Two-thirds of physicians and 42 percent of the public used smartphones as of late 2009, even in an ongoing recession.

The creation of applications related to health and health care is also moving quickly. As of February 2010, there were nearly 6,000 such apps in the Apple AppStore. Of these, 73 percent were intended for consumer or patient end users, while 27 percent - were targeted to health
care professionals.

Apps geared to physicians include alerts, medical reference tools, diagnostic tools, continuing medical education and patient records programs. Consumer-oriented apps include those for medication compliance, mobile and home monitoring, home care, managing conditions and wellness/fitness.

There are challenges to continued rapid smartphone growth, including business model and privacy issues.

To download the full report How Smartphones Are Changing Health Care for Consumers and Providers, please click here.



Jane Sarasohn-Kahn MA, MHSA is principal and founder of THINK-Health, a strategic health consultancy. A health economist, Jane is passionate about the role of technology in enhancing health care quality and access and reducing costs. She is the author of Participatory Health: Online and Mobile Tools Help Chronically Ill Manage Their Care, published in September 2009 by the California HealthCare Foundation. She writes the popular Health Populi blog.