Many patients suffering from chronic diseases find it difficult to cope with complicated regimens, varying medical advice and long-term pain, so now they are turning to apps to help improve their quality of life, according to a March 15 Wired article.
Chronic illness costs the U.S. health system $3.8 trillion annually, so these apps can act as a strategy to alleviate the financial burden and improve patients' ability to cope with their conditions. In 2017, there were 318,500 mobile health apps around, 40 percent of which were dedicated to illness management.
Such apps are being used by patients to fill in the gaps left by the healthcare system, providing them with tools for logging symptoms, tracking trends and suggesting management strategies. Some results from studies of chronic illness management apps showed that users found them helpful, reporting fewer visits to the physician as well as decreased anxiety and frustration.
"Effective therapies require frequent, individualized interventions that extend beyond the hospital and clinic to reach patients in their day-to-day lives," Yossi Bahagon, founder of digital therapeutics company Sweetch, told Wired. "Mobile apps that combine advanced data science with robust behavioral science models and user experience can drive the adoption of recommended health promotion and chronic disease management behaviors in a highly personalized, cost-efficient, and scalable way that can change the trajectory of the chronic disease epidemic."
Read the full report here.