How is mHealth changing health in China and the USA, the two largest world economies?

The number of mobile connections in the world is still on the increase and a large part of this future growth is expected to occur in the Asia-Pacific region. Russia specifically has the largest penetration of mobile phones per capita, with 180%, followed by Vietnam with 150% and Indonesia with 120%. However, China and India are the areas with the largest number of mobile devices in the world. 

The implementation of mobility and broadband contributes positively to an economy. The China Academy of Telecommunications Research (CATR) maintains that the extension of the mobile broadband connections in the world largely benefits the Chinese rural communities, where one out of every four internet users in the country live. According to a survey in June 2013 from the China National Networking Centre (CNNC), 78.9% of internauts in rural areas connect to the internet through their mobile phones. This suggests that there is a great opportunity for using mHealth in these areas, where the ratio of healthcare professionals per head of population is half that of the urban areas of China. 

In fact the growing number of people with chronic disease and the ageing population are putting pressure on the Chinese health system. These are the same problems facing the United States, where chronic disease currently accounts for up to 75% of total health expenditure and by 2050, one out of every five people are likely to be over sixty-five years of age. 

With such a future scenario, the Chinese Government’s reply has been firm: it has created the Chinese Work Plan for the Prevention of Chronic Disease 2012-2015 with the use of mobile devices to monitor patients as one of the key pieces. 

The mHealth market on the rise

According to the model for predicting the growth of mHealth, drawn up by the GSMA, by 2017 China will be the country of the world with the largest percentage of the mobile health market with 37% of the total, followed by Japan with 21%.

Today there are already 2,000 mobile applications created in China. Despite this figure, the ratio of use per user is still low. It is known that at the present time only 2.9% of the mobile phones of Chinese citizens have some mHealth application installed, a percentage which is expected to reach 30% by 2015. However, in just one year, from 2012 to 2013, the mHealth market grew by 17.7% and it is estimated that by the end of 2017, the market will be in excess of 10,000 million Yuan (1,170 million euros). 

Furthermore, an explosion is also expected in the Chinese wearables market. In addition to this, by 2017 the monitoring service market in the country will reach 1,200 million dollars, with 90% of the income coming from solutions for managing chronic disease, which is expected to dominate the global mobile health market. The other two subsectors that the indicators believe will grow are diagnoses and treatments. The videoconferencing systems market, which allows access to medical services at a low cost but high quality in areas with few resources also experienced growth of 28.24% in 2013.

In the United States, the use of mHealth is also spreading fast. According to a national survey carried out by the Pew Internet and American Life Project in 2012, 31% of those who answered already used their mobile phones to search for medical or health information on the Internet. With respect to 2010, 37% more of those who had a smartphone already used apps to monitor or manage their health. 

The goal: to overcome the barriers on mHealth

Despite the emerging opportunities, the report of the Center for Technology Innovation of The Brookings Institution indicates the obstacles for overtaking both China and the United States on the path to the expansion of the use of mHealth:

• Despite everything, the market is still small in both countries, in the introductory phase. In order to accelerate the growth, it is necessary to foster cooperation between telecommunications operators, health centres, medical professionals and patients. 
• There are challenges in the legislative and political area. At the present time, the Chinese Health Ministry does not allow the treatment of patients or prescriptions by means of mobile devices. In the United States, by contrast, the most important concern is how to pay for the mHealth services. No public or private insurance covers the cost of the consultations, diagnoses and treatments via mobile health.
• There is a lack of regulation and standards on software and hardware both in China and the United States. This is a very important reason that prevents the development of the sector.

If these obstacles are overcome, the authors of the report say that mHealth will undoubtedly optimise the efficiency of the health systems in China and the United States by reducing the errors and rationalising the medical processes, in addition to improving the patient’s experience. Furthermore, the expansion of the use of mobile health will contribute to suitably storing and analysing the health data, which will enable the administrations to take better informed decisions in the health area.  

Bibliographic reference 

• Xiaohui, Y. et al. mHealth in China and the United States: How Mobile Technology is Transforming Healthcare in the World’s Two Largest Economies. China Academy of Telecommunication Research of MIIT and Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings, 2014 [access: 3 April 2014]. Available at: http://www.brookings.edu/…