Economist study on mHealth: improving outcomes, but revenue model?

The Economist‘s just published survey of 144 healthcare executives in 23 countries, taken in June 2014, is a combination of cheering and dismaying.

The good:

• Most executives surveyed (64 percent) believe that new mobile technologies and services that provide greater patient access to medical information “could dramatically improve health outcomes”.
• 63 percent project that “greater patient access to their personal data will allow people to make better decisions about their health”.

Holding things back are factors as diverse as:

• Risk aversion within the healthcare industry (institutional bias and conservatism
  within the healthcare establishment) cited by 44 percent
• Patient privacy concerns (49 percent)
• Patients finding technology hard to use (54 percent)

These executives are also not strong on wearables; they do not believe that it will alter healthcare in any noticeable way (21 percent). And still there is the consideration about how to make money in mobile health: 10% of respondents (and 19% of those in the US) believe mobile health has no promising revenue model.  PDF  Hat tip to Ashley Gold of POLITICO’s Morning eHealth on Monday.