Whether you're a first-time parent or you're an experienced one, looking out for children's health and wellness is a serious concern. For many adults, managing physical activity has become easier in recent years, with the use of mobile applications targeting health and fitness.
Many of these devices use mobile sensing tools to enhance the ways in which people are able to benefit from them. According to research firm ON World, there could be up to 1.4 billion mobile sensing health and fitness app downloads by 2017 across the globe, Fierce Mobile Health reported.
"Advances in low power wireless communications, MEMS and multi-sensor arrays have resulted in viable body area network applications for clinical patient monitoring, assisted care, at-home chronic disease management and general wellness," said Mareca Hatler, ON World's research director. "At the same time, there has been enormous growth for mobile sensing apps for smartphones and tablets."
The survey by ON World also demonstrated that nearly 48 percent of individuals who own smart watches would likely use them for health and fitness-related management purposes.
Apps make prescriptions easier to gain
In addition to making it easier for individuals to manage their health and that of their children, mobile apps are also transforming the ways in which people are able to get prescriptions.
In a recent survey including 2,000 participants, researchers with Digitas Health learned that, although 66 percent of individuals would pick up prescriptions from doctors, 90 percent would prefer to receive them through a mobile app.
"We were expecting this to be a little more recent and, looking at heavy smartphone use, we were assuming users would have only recently been diagnosed, or working with a patient," Geoff McCleary, Digitas Health's group director of mobile innovations, told PM LIve. "But we found that we're looking at people that have had a condition for some time and are still doing research and seeking to get additional information."
According to researchers, individuals using mobile apps for prescriptions are of different ages, yet women seem to use them more often than men.
For parents, mobile apps for prescriptions could be an effective way to manage chronic pediatric medical conditions and also determine whether a medication is the right one for children. CNN reported that popular mobiles apps include ZocDoc, which let users book doctor's appointments through the service, and HealthTap, which gives users the chance to submit questions and learn more about overall wellness.
Mobile apps cannot replace the influence that pharmacists have, especially those that provide individualized counseling, but apps can make the selection and balance of new medications more seamless than before.
