EXCLUSIVE POST – Roberto Ascione is a physician and marketing specialist from Italy. He founded his first company, Healthware in 1996. This company was acquired by Publicis Group in 2007 and aligned under PHCG (Publicis HealthCare Communication Group) as the largest health-oriented agency network in the world. I have the honor of talking today with Roberto about the future of mHealth in the EU.
Q. Roberto, mHealth was one of the reasons you launched Publicis Healthware International (http://www.publicishealthware.com). Your company now has incredible breadth of experience in digital projects. So, please tell us, with health-related APPs growing exponentially but subject to incredibly fast obsolescence and tough selection from the users, is mHealth already mature?
A. Given what is happening in mHealth in general, and the dizzying number of apps and services growing in this
Q. But you see the trend leading to “suites of apps” as the next stage of development, it seems?
A. Yes, the other thing that this natural selection process is doing is to generate exponential growth in mHealth into the coming year, when we will see single-purpose apps being integrated into a suite of apps designed to work together to deliver improved health outcomes. This growth will be seen across the entire healthcare spectrum from sales to compliance and adherence. Some of these changes will be seen for Pharma Reps, as they will continue to use mobile detailing apps, but this time adapted for customized patient education tools (thus introducing a value added proposition to the engagement with physicians). EMR/EHR platforms will be further leveraged and accessible by being integrated into Point of Care decision support apps. In addition, the ability of new devices’ native capabilities to be leveraged for improving patient monitoring, as well as patient-physician communications in between visits, will create the right mix for the creation of compliance and adherence apps. Once all of these elements are put into a single context, we are not far from envisioning a scenario where the mHealth suite becomes a communication tool to deliver education, track data, help make decisions, and ultimately it will work its way into becoming an integral component of the overall care process.
Q. Given your global perspective at Publicis Healthware, what distinguishes Europe in the world of Mobile Health?
A. A couple of things, in my opinion. First of all something that is true for digital health in general which is to say being Europe not one Country both in terms of language as well as in terms of healthcare systems and health consumption behaviours the scenario is more fragmented than other areas. This translates in less critical mass available to allow solutions to scale up as efficiently as elsewhere such as in US. The second issue – somehow related – is the availability of large accessible data sets. Having data sets, coding, taxonomies, etc. truly accessible and able to be leveraged by mHealth applications is key to deploy several solutions substantially and I see gaps here too.
Q. We’ll be seeing you at Doctors 2.0 & You Paris. Why would you recommend that our members (readers?) attend this conference?
A. Mainly because the all m/e Health is a ‘cross discipline’ environment where you might see a computer scientist discussing with a communication expert and a physician sharing a common language, all challenging the same issue and Doctors 2.0 & You successfully represents a gathering of all those concerned in a formula which fosters dialogue and productive discussions.
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