Thursday, August 02, 2012

Mobile Digital Marketing Strategies & Health


Being a cross-reg student from Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health, I often ask myself:

  • “What are the potential health applications of these digital marketing strategies?”   
  • “Why is the B-school so much posher than Mailman?  

I then reflect on evidence of this poshness gap, like the fact that at Mailman we have paper cardstock name tags that wilt and stain with age, an afterthought handed out in our third semester, printed in an undignified comic sans font.  The Columbia B-school students have engraved nameplates and corresponding holders slots on their classroom desks...  The reasons for the gap are crystal clear, but I like taunting myself with this question anyway.  


I digress.


Oh yes, the potential health applications of these digital marketing strategies..
I think that the mobile strategies have the greatest potential in the health field, for marketing and connecting users with health resources and providers!  Examples of emerging mobile digital strategies in health include:



  • Emergency preparedness communications apps like Ready Georgia
  • Electronic Health Record apps that allow for smart phone and web based patient health records (PHR) access, appointment setting and prescription filling, like Kaiser Permanente's My Health Manager App
  • Continuing Medical Education (CME) applications  that allow physicians to access CME course content and take the related tests on they smartphones and tablets, like ReachMD 
  • Full spectrum remote patient vital signs monitoring apps like Adhere 2 Care Inc.’s mobile Android app that transmits data captured by Bluetooth-enabled sensors or biosensor devices to a cloud-based web portal where caretakers or family members can access it. 

According to the “Global Mobile Health Market Report 2010-2015”, mobile healthcare application business models will broaden to include healthcare services, sensor, advertising and drug sales as the majority of mobile-related revenues.  The Smartphone application market alone for mobile healthcare increased by a factor of 7 to reach $US 718 million in 2011.







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