PERSPECTIVES

Dr. Eric Topol is not only a cardiologist, but one of the top overall physicians in the United States and a top 10 most-cited researcher in medicine.

Topol’s message: Smartphone technology has advanced so quickly that it has caught up to industry standard medical devices. In fact, it should be a required tool for every physician. But, physicians are not the only party that should be using smartphones to diagnose and manage care–patients should, too.

Dr. Topol isn’t just an advocate, though; he has had firsthand experience in using mobile health devices in emergency situations. “I once diagnosed a patient who was having a heart attack on an airplane.” He proclaimed that we have already digitalized books and magazines, so now is the time we start digitizing man and his health. That’s the future of medicine.

A constant theme throughout the mHealth Summit, not just specific to Dr. Topol’s presentation, is that healthcare is about to become highly personalized–thanks in part to mobile health devices and smartphones.

What’s Standing In The Way?

The adoption of smartphones and other mobile health devices by healthcare providers has been slow to date. Innovators and developers argue that healthcare providers are not willing to embrace the new technologies while the providers argue that they do not fit into their current workflow.

What’s Next?

Dr. Topol is the first to admit that physicians are slow to adjust–a seemingly industry standard. The issue: docs have very few incentives to adopt new innovations. In the current model, physicians don’t want alternatives to follow-up visits as they are reimbursed for the number of services they provide, not necessarily the quality of those services.

But the tide may change…soon. The Affordable Care Act (Health Reform as we know it) will begin to penalize health systems for re-admittance of a Medicare patient if it could have been avoided with proper care.

A change in model may just be the tipping point…