A firm called Deloitte has released an Issue Brief in which they have outlined the ways in which health care reform can benefit from the use of smartphones and other mobile devices, helping to enhance the patient experience and to decrease some of the current health care costs.
The report explained that if the mobile device, such as the phone, could be used in order to obtain information and use electronic health records, it has the potential to “analyze aggregate data to activate mobile, patient-specific output such as medication reminders, healthy habit tips and medical bill reminders.”
It described the way in which an individual’s health records can be stored within a mobile device can make a significant difference for health care providers, payers, and consumers.
Within a release, executive director Paul Keckley, Ph.D., from the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, stated that when it is taken into account that over 70 percent of the total American health care spending, $2.4 trillion, is made up of expenses relating to the treatment of chronic disease, mobile phone health records become a significant cost reducing opportunity for the management of chronic those conditions such as obesity or diabetes.
Deloitte had already reported a survey in 2010, called the Survey of Health Care Consumers, which determined that:
• Half of all consumers would like some form of personal device that would help them to monitor their condition, with alerts and information so that they can improve the treatment of their health or specific condition.
• Fifty-seven percent of consumers would like to be able to access their personal health records online.
• Twice as many individuals in the generation X and generation Y age groups as senior citizens and baby boomers would like to be able to access and maintain their personal health records using a mobile device.
