Disease Management Thru Mobile Platforms

• Disease management is emerging as the next big thing in Healthcare-IT. It is catching up in both US healthcare as well as Govt run healthcare systems in commonwealth countries like Canada, UK, Singapore, Australia etc. India should not be far behind.





• The prime reason for interest in disease management is due to rapid increase in chronic diseases owing to adoption of unhealthy lifestyles.





• Improvements in laboratory technology have enabled better monitoring of physiological and pathological markers.





• The disease can be monitored from predisposition stage itself.





• IT products for Disease management are few and far between. But leveraging the mobile technology can catapult the Disease management into the forefront of everyday life.
  Mobile platforms are ubiquitous in nature and are very personal to the patient and the doctor. Any Disease management program run by using mobile platform should be an instant hit.





• However the open question that remains is that who will pay for the program initially i.e. Disease Registry and Disease Management Program. Although the data generated by the program is expected to pay for the program over time, but initially there is no data and no value can be derived from it until much later.





• Governments, Mobile platform companies, Health Insurance companies and Pharma companies accrue the maximum benefits. They should be in a position to pay for the program initially and reap the rich benefits from the data collected over time.





• Governments are paying for the program in some commonwealth countries, whereas some Insurance companies are already investing in CDM in USA. It will be interesting to see who takes the lead in a country like India where the gold [data] lies at the bottom of the social pyramid!