Want to Manage Your Diabetes? There's an App for That by Knowledge@Wharton, the online business journal of the Wharton School.
During the first annual Connected Health Symposium at the University of Pennsylvania in April, faculty members and entrepreneurs spent a day showcasing new mobile tools that patients can use to communicate with their physicians, chart their progress reaching health goals and interact with other people who are facing similar medical challenges. This is the essence of the connected health movement -- a groundswell of mobile apps, wireless devices, and websites designed to bring patients together with the people who want to keep them healthy. The symposium ended with a provocative question posed by Ralph Muller, CEO of the University of Pennsylvania Health System: "But do consumers want to be so connected?"
Entrepreneurs are betting the answer to that question will be "absolutely." But they're facing a host of challenges: The U.S. Food & Drug Administration is preparing to release guidelines for mobile medical apps that could require some companies to seek the agency's approval for their products before can go to market. Even if firms clear those regulatory hurdles, designing the gizmos so they appeal to tech-averse types, such as the elderly, will be far from straight forward. "I do think the big challenge, once the technology has been created and approved, is going to be focusing on behavior change in high-risk populations," notes Kevin Volpp, Wharton professor of health care management, who also spoke at the symposium. As for whether patients want to be so connected, Volpp says, "Some do and some don't, and that's part of the challenge."