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Transforming patient care: The power of digital health apps

Transforming patient care: The power of digital health apps   Rachel Marley

Quick takes

  • Digital health apps are putting patients at the center of care, enhancing accessibility, and improving patient compliance
  • Digital health apps make it possible to increase the amount of health data that can be collected, paving the way for more accurate diagnoses and tailored care options
  • While big data has the power to greatly expand our understanding of human health, this data must be collected responsibly and adhere to privacy protocols and ethical considerations

The use of digital applications within healthcare is growing, and there looks to be no signs of it slowing down. An average of nearly one million digital health apps were downloaded in 2023, up 42% from 2019.1  This was even higher in areas such as blood pressure monitoring and cardiovascular health, which saw a staggering growth increase of 500% from 2019 to 2023.1

Digital health apps are not just being used by private individuals, but are changing the way healthcare is delivered. Since 2020, physicians in Germany have been able to prescribe approved digital applications2 to support the management of a range of conditions such as endometriosis, diabetes, and depression.3 In the UK, according to a survey by the Organisation for the Review of Care and Health Apps, 60% more doctors recommended digital health apps to their patients in 2023 than in 2022, and 68% of people agree that digital health apps should be used within the NHS.3

From interacting with clinicians through virtual visits to tracking general health metrics to monitoring symptoms or managing health conditions remotely,5 the increased use of apps for managing individual health is enabling patients to become more engaged across the entire care pathway.

Building on conversations and insights published by the HealthcareTransformers community, we take a look at the digital health landscape and where it’s headed. 

A shift to patient-centered care

Increasing patient engagement is seen as critically important for improving long-term health outcomes. As most adults spend only a brief amount of time in healthcare facilities, they are often on their own when they make important decisions about their health. It is therefore necessary that they feel empowered and in control of those decisions.6

As patients become more involved in monitoring their own health, they are looking for more convenient, transparent, and individualized solutions. Emerging healthcare delivery models are driven by the need to prioritize patient-centered care, and digitalization has a significant role to play. Sami Inkinen, Cofounder and CEO of Virta Health, points out that, “Technology enables our patient centricity in three ways: accessibility through virtual health, building an experience around the patient 24/7 via continuous remote care and accumulating massive amounts of data to drive proactive care.” 

Increased accessibility through virtual health 

Perhaps the clearest example of how digital health tools are enhancing accessibility is through the rapid growth of technologies for home care. Wearable devices, enabled by smartphone connectivity, can test and monitor a patient’s disease progression outside of a clinical setting. Combined with virtual consultations and online pharmacies, these technologies enable healthcare professionals to test, monitor, diagnose, and treat patients in the comfort of their own homes. This ease of testing for patients results in greater compliance and ultimately better health outcomes.  

Another example of how digital tools have the potential to increase access and reduce the need for clinical visits comes from BioTrillion, a San Francisco-based company using artificial intelligence (AI) to apply smartphone and mobile health technology to human physiology through digital biomarkers.

Founder and CEO, Savan Devani explains, “When we consider our daily interactions with our phones, we unlock them hundreds of times a day using facial recognition. Each of these instances is an opportunity to monitor one’s health. Our “Healthy Selfie” TM technology captures a brief 10-second video of your face and extracts five crucial biomarkers: heart rate, blood oxygen, pupillary reflex, eye saccades, and hand tremor. These are clinically well-known “vital signs” for the health of our three most important organs: the heart, lungs, and brain. Such an approach could potentially revolutionize patient monitoring, removing the need for clinical visits or invasive procedures like blood draws.”  

Improving patient experience with digital health apps

Another way digital tools are improving patient care is by allowing for personalized patient education. Healthcare can be a source of stress and anxiety for patients due to complexities or lack of understanding of their treatment plans, but new technology is providing doctors with a way to bridge this information gap. 

Mona Ciotta, Cofounder and Director of Business Development at Medudoc explains, “Medudoc enables doctors to create individualized patient videos within seconds while ensuring that the content is legally compliant and tailored to patients’ needs”. The audio-visual element of the tool is key as studies have shown that this method of education improves patient understanding, patient satisfaction, and overall adherence and compliance towards the medical treatment process.7

Adopting and utilizing digital tools have the potential to further improve patient experiences by freeing up healthcare providers’ time, and allowing them to focus on care rather than administration. Delegating the collection of data as well as administrative and analytical tasks to AI and other digital tools, should allow physicians more time to answer patient questions and provide more in-depth consultations and support.  

digital health apps

Insights through real-world, real-time data 

One area of digital health that has seen phenomenal growth is the female technology (FemTech) market as women increasingly demand practical products and solutions to support their health needs. In addition to providing individual women with key insights that allow them to better manage their health and well-being, these products help to provide real-time, real-world datasets on women’s health.  As a result, researchers are gaining crucial insights and understanding in an area where there is historically an egregious lack of data.8 

But the increased use of digital health apps goes beyond benefitting women’s health, to the entire population. Sundeep Gaba, CEO of AllesHealth, believes there is growing recognition that harvesting real-world data and evidence will be instrumental in delivering better outcomes for patients, healthcare practitioners, policymakers, and other decision-makers within healthcare systems as a whole. 

Tapping into the potential of digital health apps

While the potential for digital tools to improve patient care is huge, these tools are not always successful.  With over 350,000 health apps available to download from various app stores globally, just 110 apps account for almost 50% of downloads.5 According to a 2023 Economist Impact report, patients are most likely to use new technology if it is easy to use and understand, with 37.7% of respondents citing ease of use as the most important factor when deciding whether or not to use a new tool.9

Experts interviewed for the Economist Impact report said that there was still a greater need for patient engagement as digital technologies are not being fully or appropriately adopted and that patients need to be supported in their use of new technology. 

An additional consideration for patients using apps is data privacy and security. Although insights derived from big data are hugely beneficial to the advancement of research and healthcare delivery, it is important to ensure patients are empowered to feel comfortable and in control of the data they are sharing, and that they feel they are benefitting from doing so. The digital health landscape is constantly shifting as healthcare providers navigate the pros and cons of this emerging technology. One thing is clear: digital health apps are set to change the way healthcare is delivered, putting the patient at the center of care. As these technologies become more sophisticated,  transformations in the health sector are inevitable.

  1. Shah S. (2024) Article available from https://sensortower.com/blog/the-rise-of-healthcare-apps-a-new-era-in-digital-health [Accessed May 2024]
  2. Wangler J. and Jansky M. (2023) Eur J Gen Pract. 29(1), 2186396. Paper available from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10026738/ [Accessed May 2024]
  3. Bundesinstitut für Arzneimittel und Medizinprodukte. (2024) Available from https://diga.bfarm.de/de/verzeichnis [Accessed May 2024] 
  4. Lydon C. (2023) Article available from https://www.digitalhealth.net/2023/07/majority-of-public-want-digital-health-apps-to-be-used-in-nhs/ [Accessed May 2024] 
  5. Deloitte. (2021) Article available from https://blogs.deloitte.co.uk/health/2021/10/how-digital-health-apps-are-empowering-patients-improving-outcomes-and-increasing-accessibility.html [Accessed May 2024] 
  6. Krist A et al. (2017) Stud Health Technol Inform. 240, 284-302. Paper available from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6996004/ [Accessed May 2024]
  7. Tom K. and Phang T. (2022). PEC 105, 1878-1887. Paper available from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0738399122000386 [Accessed May 2024] 
  8. World Economic Forum. (2024) Article available from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2024/05/womens-health-gap-healthcare/ [Accessed May 2024] 
  9. Economist Impact. (2023) Available from https://impact.economist.com/perspectives/sites/default/files/download/digital-health-barometer-2023_roche_charlie.pdf [Accessed May 2024]

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