“There’s a huge group of mobile users that you may be overlooking as you develop your hospital’s mobile strategy. They’re “information seekers,” and they will be the largest cohort of mobile healthcare consumers in the future, according to a new report by IBM, “The Future of Connected Health Devices.”
Traditional mHealth users are a small percentage of highly motivated individuals with significant fitness goals or debilitating chronic conditions. Both groups are willing to put in the time to learn and use smartphone apps, remote monitoring devices and other mobile health products, IBM’s researchers found in their study of more than 1,300 mobile health device users.
A far larger, but trickier-to-engage, group consists of “information seekers,” according to the study. These users may have one chronic condition, such as obesity or smoking, that doesn’t immediately threaten their health, but that they want help managing.”