ORLANDO (Florida), US - (HealthTech Wire / Opinion by Aaron Kaufman) - With NHS budget cuts and efficiency savings having dominated the national news agenda over the past year, it is clear that the UK healthcare industry needs to find affordable solutions for providing quality patient care. Focus has increasingly turned to how communication technology strategies — in particular, mobile applications — may be able to solve the problem. Aaron Kaufman is Vice President Healthcare at Kony. He explains how mobile applications could help bring about the needed revolution in patient care.
Recent years have witnessed a revolution in the way healthcare information is being delivered to patients. With the rapid development of information technology and the exponential growth in PC and mobile devices, patients now have a wide choice of increasingly direct channels through which they can communicate with healthcare providers. You only have to look at the way in which the NHS Direct service has evolved, from originally being a telephone service, to having a strong online presence, and most recently, to launching its own mobile app, to see that any service hoping to remain connected to its users must be present on whatever mobile device or channel patients are using — regardless of whether pressing budget cuts are on the horizon.
This is clearly backed up by a recent report from the World Health Organisation , which has criticised the slow progress of mobile health (mHealth) initiatives across the globe, regardless of the healthcare system structure in individual countries. The study found that while there was a definite growth in mHealth projects, the majority of these initiatives are only in pilot phases.
In the UK, there is clearly a huge potential for mHealth strategies. Recent statistics from NHS Direct show that its web traffic from mobile devices has increased from 3,000 to 155,000 users a month over the last year, and Matthew Garrood, the organisation’s Associate Director of Multi-Channel, added that NHS Direct expects that a quarter of its web traffic will come from mobile and portable devices in 2011-12. With the breakneck speed at which mobile devices have become a consumer necessity, and with the significant benefits provided by mobile apps both to patients and healthcare providers, it is a surprise that providers have not embraced mHealth strategies with open arms.
Just recently, Ronnette Lucraft, NHS Direct’s Chief Operating Officer, spoke openly about why it was necessary for NHS Direct to introduce mobile apps – citing speed, convenience, and ease-of-access for patients as primary reasons. She also mentioned that an important aspect was the discretion it offered patients in public places needing help for sensitive issues. These factors certainly begin to explain why mobile apps in healthcare are currently gaining traction, and illustrate why patients are demanding apps. However, they merely skim the surface of how an mHealth strategy can significantly benefit healthcare providers.
Cost savings
Fundamentally, the key incentive for healthcare providers to implement mobile apps is cost savings. At the core of every healthcare provider’s strategy lies the question of how to continuously provide better patient care away at a lower cost – which comes down to how effectively patients can support themselves, regardless of when they need help and where they are when they need it.
Healthcare professionals are beginning to better understand how to implement mHealth strategies, as they realise that unlike other industries, mobile app initiatives in the health arena are not about maximising transactional opportunities, but about optimising information services to decrease in-person visits where possible – ultimately reducing the burden of organisational resources.
Over the past year, NHS Direct has reportedly calculated that it has added £44m of value to the NHS by reducing inappropriate visits to healthcare professionals . However, call centre costs are still expensive, and over the years there have been varying figures as to how much every telephone call to the NHS costs UK taxpayers, with reports of up to £25 per phone call — which is nearly as much as a visit to a GP. Consequently, although NHS Direct undoubtedly saves the NHS a great deal of money, minimising patient phone calls is nevertheless a primary focus for healthcare providers, and mobile apps play a key role in significantly reducing call centre traffic.
This undoubtedly contributed to NHS Direct’s decision to implement its mobile app, and the app’s success — reaching the number one spot on the iTunes top free apps chart within the first week of its release — shows that healthcare apps are clearly something that the UK population is strongly demanding.
Another noteworthy example of how providers can reduce costs with mobile apps is through automated reminders. Take missed appointments, for instance. Back in 2005, the Sunday Telegraph reported that missed appointments cost the NHS £575 million every year. Providing an automated reminder via a mobile app would clearly add value to providers’ strategies to efficiently and effectively reduce costs.
Future-proofed strategy
While investing in mobile apps can bring providers immediate lowered costs, the key value of an mHealth strategy is the long-term business structure benefits it can facilitate. This is because the primary purpose of mHealth is to aid in preventative care, encourage self-help and provide diagnostic information — which lightens call-centre traffic. However, in the long-term, the implementation of mobile apps and a comprehensive mHealth strategy will drive a change to patients’ perspectives to healthcare, towards better managing their own health, therefore reducing the overall burden on healthcare services and supporting a cost-effective sustainable structure.
However, providers must not fall into the trap of viewing the implementation of an ‘mHealth strategy’ as a one-time release of a mobile app on a single mobile platform. Private business and public sector organisations alike often embark on mobile strategies that simply cater for one device, often restricting their portfolio to an iPhone app — but this is a dangerous game to play considering the increasingly fragmented state of the mobile market.
While the concept of developing a single app for a single device may initially seem like the cheaper option, it is a short-sighted solution that fails to address today’s need to cater to patients on all devices. The current fragmentation in the mobile and portable device world means that patients are on a huge variety of mobile platforms, with different preferences when it comes to how they want to access their healthcare information. Furthermore, with the speed which mobile technology is developing, it is impossible for providers to guess which channels will quickly become popular at any point in the future. This translates into huge disruption for healthcare providers who fail to have a flexible, all encompassing mobile strategy.
To offer a truly comprehensive mHealth scheme that effectively assists patients whilst reducing overall costs, providers need to deploy a lucrative mobile app platform that future-proofs their investment by allowing apps to run on any mobile platform, through any mobile channel. Innovative technology makes this simple and takes away the mobile chaos, ensuring that providers can cost-effectively deliver an mHealth strategy that does not require the sacrifice of patients on certain mobile platforms.
The advent of apps
Historically, as NHS Direct’s strategy demonstrates, the major leap forward for offering better preventative care at fewer costs presented itself years ago via the landline telephone. Then came the PC, which was monumental in providing more efficient and comprehensive information services for users to independently manage their health. However, this still had its challenges; for example, the fixed desktop could not provide the flexibility and convenience that patients truly required. Now, in mobile technology, providers may have found a future-proofed answer.
The recent launch of the NHS Direct mobile app is undoubtedly a great step forward for the NHS and for mHealth initiatives in the UK. However, with a whopping £20 billion of efficiency savings that the NHS needs to make, time is quickly running out for the UK’s healthcare system to cut costs without impacting the quality of patient care. The potential for mobile apps to be a key player in aiding as seamless a reshuffle as possible — by driving patients towards long-term self-help, directing them to the right levels of service and minimising call centre activity and inappropriate physical visits — will only continue to grow.
‘mHealth: New horizons for health through mobile technologies’, World Health Organisation, 07/06/2011
‘NHS Direct saves NHS £44m a year and reports success of mobile apps’, E-Health Insider, 28/06/2011
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Aaron Kaufman is Vice President Healthcare at Kony.
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