Does Digital Health Help Patients Learn?
Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA
President and CEO, Society of Physician Entrepreneurs, another lousy golfer, terrible cook, friction fixer
So much information. So little understanding. How else are we to interpret a landmark 2006 report noting that only about 12% of US adults had a proficient state of health literacy whereby “individuals can obtain, process and understand the basic health information and services they need to make appropriate health decisions, as recently reported in JAMA.
Digital health products and services come in two basic flavors. They are either medical devices, subject to regulation by the FDA, or they are not. In most cases, the latter are intended to provide information and education to patients, like how to manage their chronic disease or when is the best time of the month to try to get pregnant. If you want to know which is which, read this guidance document.
Whether your digital health product is one or the other, they both should be clinically effective. In other words, they should do what you say they are supposed to do, or , what is their digital intended use? In the case of devices, you need to do clinical trials to demonstrate they are safe and effective. In the case of informational and educational products, you should somehow demonstrate that users increase their health literacy as an endpoint. Few digital health products do either.
Doctors and patients are confused about apps to recommend and there is a lack of clear and convincing evidence that using them increases heath understanding or changes behavior. Until and unless we demand more rigor from vendors, they are just pushing digital snake oil.
Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs at www.sopenet.org and author of The Blogbook of Physician Entrepreneurship at www.hcplive.com/contributor/arlen-meyers-md-mba
Updated June, 2016
LSU Health Foundation BOD (Chair 2003-06); Healthcare innovations
9 年Expecting lay persons to understand medical or surgical issues on the same level as professionals is a fantasy. However, persons who can read and seek online info from a reliable source can become better educated about their overall condition and treatment. In the end, most patients are going to rely on their physician to direct them in terms of diagnosis, treatment and what educational resources need to be employed. Health literacy is a very fluid thing. Most folks increase their health literacy on a specific subject when they themselves, a close family member or friend has a specific illness or injury. Beyond that, the rest is determined by how "health conscious" each individual is. That of course also relates to health apps and digital accessories as they are only as good as the person using or wearing them choose to make them.
President and CEO, Society of Physician Entrepreneurs, another lousy golfer, terrible cook, friction fixer
9 年While a nice thought, it is more complicated than that. When it comes to digital health apps that are not medical devices, the customer decides whether there is value, not doctors. Fitbit's market cap continues to increase despite the evidence that it has marginal impact on health or health literacy. The same can be said for supplements, vitamins, some complementary and alternative treatments and many Western medical treatments as well. What makes you think that doctors are any better at determining what is effective and should be deployed than anyone else? The evidence would suggest otherwise. https://oto.sagepub.com/content/152/4/587.full
Hockey Dad, Chief Hand Surgery JSUMC, Clin Assist Prof Ortho Rutgers Med
9 年When doctors band together to take back control of providing peer-reviewed, unbiased online medical information, things will change for the better.