Doctors aren't finding patient self-diagnosis via online tools very useful
- Summary:
- There has been an explosion in health apps in recent years and vendors are scrambling to get a slice of the pie, but can you really beat face-to-face interaction for treatment?
Over the past year or two we have seen digital vendors increasingly up their presence in the healthcare sector, with apps and wearables promising to be a healthy
(excuse the pun) source of new revenues. Everyone from Apple, to Samsung, to Salesforce.com, all want a piece of the pie.However, as it turns out, doctors are not actually finding online tools and digital technologies that useful when it comes to diagnosis and treatment of patients, according to some interesting research that was released by Cello Health Insight this week.
The research follows Dennis' very amusing piece on diginomica about how he feels he has been conned out of $129 by Fitbit, given that he was easily able to manipulate the accuracy of the wearable device's data – simply by waving his arms about a bit. Thus raising the question, how useful would such health data be to a medical professional? Dennis said in his piece:
I am very annoyed about this. Fitbit has defrauded me of $129 for something that, when it isn’t burning people’s skin, is an utter waste of money. The question everyone should be asking though is this: how many other devices are making it up as they go along and what does this mean for healthcare in the future? I think I already know the answer but you decide for yourself.
A couple of weeks ago I also met Infor's Chief Medical Information Officer, Dr. Barry P Chaiken, and I asked him for his opinion on wearables and whether he was excited by the prospect that patients could bring their own personal data to a consultation, and whether or not it was useful for people to be monitoring their health on their smartphone.
Chaiken's response was less than optimistic. Whilst he recognised that something like Fitbit might be a great motivational tool, given that it is likely to get people moving if they feel they have something monitoring them, he didn't believe that medical professionals would take the data provided from such a tool as a source of information for treatment.
This view is supported by the research released this week by Cello, which found that only 20% of doctors would recommend a fitness tracking band to their patients, only 30 percent would recommend a health app and only one in ten doctors actually own some form of wearable (which is surprising given that the research found high uptake amongst doctors across other technologies, such as smartphones).
Not only this, but doctors are finding that the internet and self-diagnosis in general to be very unhelpful when it comes to treating their patients. That being said, the medical professionals surveyed did highlight some ways in which mobile apps and monitoring could be helpful to patient treatment and make their jobs easier – but more on that later.
Here's an infographic of the most revealing results:
As you can see, despite patients coming to their doctor's armed with their own information, very few found that it helped them with treatment. I must admit, I've certainly done this myself – last time I went to my GP I walked in pretty certain about what I needed treatment for, only to be told that I shouldn't waste my time researching symptoms on WebMD.
Related articles
- A chat with Infor's CMIO (that's Chief Medical Information Officer)
- The Friday Roast - wearables and the Fitbit Force fraud
- Salesforce fleshes out its plans to become the platform of choice for wearables
Jane Barrett, Master Practitioner of Patient Insights at Cello, commented on the implications of digital health tools for doctors and the the healthcare industry. She said:
However, despite remaining sceptical about patient-collected data as tools for pre-treatment, doctors are calling out for applications that allow them to monitor how patients are complying with their treatment after consultation. The report states:This report makes fascinating reading and the implications on the relationship between patient and physician are far reaching.
The HCPs (Healthcare Professionals) are recognising the degree to which many patients are coming armed with information to the consultation. The report highlights that this isn’t necessarily welcomed by the Doctors but it is a fact of life nowadays and is shifting the nature of the diagnostic consultation and discussions around initiation of treatment.
tDigital technology is being used by patients and their caregivers to become a force to be reckoned with.
By far the most useful app in relation to health treatment could be compliance apps. In fact 58% of UK Doctors agree that a compliance app would be helpful to ensure patients make sure they take their treatment correctly. A higher proportion of older Doctors agree with the value of these apps. This offers an excellent opportunity for
Pharma brands to develop compliance apps for their products as way of potentially maximising the benefit of the drug and also generally offering greater value to HCPs in what is becoming known as ‘after the pill’ add-on services.
Though Compliance app are potentially the game changer, other apps are also seen as very beneficial by Doctors. Well over a third (40%) of UK Doctors think a diary app that records patients’ symptoms over a certain period of time prior to consultation would be helpful. Recording patient symptoms ‘in the moment’ in this way can be extremely beneficial to understand the patients case at a more granular level.
My Take
Despite what this report finds, there is obviously huge demand from consumers for applications and technology that monitor their health. This is probably in part driven by both a desire to be more healthy and part by paranoia – but either way, these tools will be popular, regardless of any criticism that emerges.
However, the fact that doctors are calling for compliance apps is interesting – linking products to apps that record how often drugs are taken and patient symptoms throughout a treatment, could be a big opportunity for Pharma companies to take a lead in the digital healthcare field.