The rollout of the new mobile healthcare technology across the countries of the EU could save billions.
According to a new GSMA report, a by the year 2017, the newly rolled out mhealth technology throughout the European Union could reduce healthcare costs by as much as €99 billion.
This mobile tech stakeholder group produced the findings along with PwC.
Savings of this level from mhealth will be exceptionally and increasingly important as populations continue to rise and to age among the E.U. countries, and as the number of people suffering from chronic diseases continues to increase. Even conditions such as diabetes are creating growing struggles for European governments as they are becoming much more common and generate great and ongoing expenses.
Last year, a different PwC report was already underscoring the importance of mhealth and the potential of its technology.
In September 2012, the PwC report looked into the importance of ehealth technology for Malta, and stated that investing into this form of healthcare and health information with high quality technological and managerial support systems could help to ease the work pressures of this industry, which are labor intensive by nature.
It also pointed to mhealth as offering a growing level of potential for addressing issues that have long been unsolved. At the moment, between 70 and 80 percent of the total budgets for healthcare in the E.U. are spent on the treatment of various forms of chronic medical conditions. These require continual care and shrink the available workforce. These challenges will continue onward and will outlast the current economic struggles without the possibility of being extinguished along with other financial battles.
According to the PwC report at that time, when speaking of mhealth, “Increasingly ubiquitous and powerful mobile technology holds the potential to address long-standing issues in healthcare provision. If the mobile revolution has the same effect in health care as it has had in other industries – such as music and banking – it will transform the way patients interact with their doctors and manage their health, and will help to address the urgent need for health care that is better, faster, less expensive and more accessible.”
