KEY IDEA: As the money continues to flow into digital health start-ups there is a vast disconnect between what consumers want and what Silicon Valley thinks they want.
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Category Archives: Digital Health
There’s little evidence that mHealth apps are effective
- Out of the hundreds of thousands of mHealth apps on the market, the effectiveness of only 22 has been evaluated in the last decade, per a study published in Nature.
- mHealth platforms could cause more harm than good to providers and payers that choose to use them to improve consumer health.
- JMIR published a meta-analysis revealing that while fitness apps modestly increased physical activity, the average step count between app users and nonusers was nonsignificant.
Our high cost of care will remain stubbornly fixed unless our behavior changes.
- Our high cost of care and modest health outcomes will remain stubbornly fixed unless our behavior changes.
- Nearly 40% of Americans were considered obese in 2015 and 2016, a significant increase from 2007 and 2008.
- A 2016 study published in the Journal of the AMA found that only 2% of Americans met the ideal dietary guidelines adopted by the American Heart Association.
- In a 2015 survey, 28% of American adults that they did not participate in the past year in any of 104 listed physical activities and were considered “totally sedentary.”
Survey on digital health doesn’t make sense
- According to Rock Health adoption of health continues to rise while consumers leverage digital health tools to address concrete health needs.
- Most doctors say they have not recommended any general health and wellness apps or wearables to their patients. (Source: Kantar)
- For medical-grade devices, the results are similar, with 70% of doctors saying they have not recommended medical-grade web-connected devices to their patients. (Source: Kantar).
- Millennials, who usually have a high adoption rate of digital health, is failing as they are the most obese generation
. Most Americans are concerned about their weight and understand the connection between weight and cardiovascular health, but a substantial proportion of them are not doing much to lose excess weight, according to a Cleveland Clinic survey.
The digital health market scam
- igital health global venture capital broke records again in 2018 with 698 deals raising a total of $9.5bn.
- Funding for the digital health sector continues to rise, at a 32% increase year-over-year – a pace that will be difficult to maintain this funding pace going into 2019 unless there is “a clear exit path for investors,”.
- In the United States, digital health companies raised close to $7 billion in 2018 with the remaining $2.5 billion coming out of other countries.
- Most doctors say they have not recommended any general health and wellness apps or wearables to their patients. (Source: Kantar)
- For medical-grade devices, the results are similar, with 70% of doctors saying they have not recommended medical-grade web-connected devices to their patients. (Source: Kantar).
The jungle of online health information
- 75 percent of adults have searched online for health-related information in the last year.
- When faced with an actual or potential diagnosis of cancer, most people are inclined to consult Dr. Google, often before they see a real live medical expert.
- It’s easy for people to land on a site filled with misinformation that leads them to make decisions that may not be in their best interests,” said Dr. Lidia Schapira, medical oncologist at Stanford University Medical Center.
Is digital health a failure?
- Billions of dollars are pouring into digital health.
- However, Americans aren’t getting any healthier.
Millennials are so overweight that they could be the most obese generation in history.- U.S.
life expectancyhas fallen for the last three years, while it rises all around the world.