According to the Manhattan Research firm, there are approximately 1,500 apps for physicians alone. In 2009 doctors owning smart phones surge 64% from the year before. That same year the number of physicians owning iPhones doubled. It estimates that by 2012, 81% of doctors will have smart phones with medical apps installed. This market is constantly on the flourish with many useful medical mobile apps flying off the virtual iTunes shelf regularly. The creative and invaluable apps offered leave the health industry and also health insurance brokers in perpetual awe. Worth noting is that these health apps are not regulated by the FDA, but this might soon change.
Even though those days are passed, there is still such a thing as mobile medical services. These services are changing the face of the medical device industry as new technological needs become required for mobile medicine.
As healthcare providers carry on and push their services further and further out, it becomes obvious that new technology is needed, For example, one sector being added onto by medical device companies is a lot more communication technologies. Some of the needs expressed by mobile medical services have been improved wireless services to ascertain communication with the parent hospital or clinic, either by wireless phones and/or internet.
Another kind of mobile medical service is the use of sports and fitness monitoring technology to use in eHealth applications. The user can upload their vitals onto the software or website, and receive vital statistics that they’re going to be utilizing to lose weight, get in shape, or just monitor their circulation. It is expected that this technology will only continue to get more and more known as people learn to do much of the medical testing and monitoring from home. Right now, this is not to say that medical technology can replace the doctor, but rather it gives tools to the average consumer or roving clinic which allows them to do more away from the hospital.