Digital health and wellness is where digital banking was two years ago, according to a new report from Apigee, which surveyed 1,000 smartphone owners 18 years of age or older in the United States.
“Research on the diffusion of innovations points to 67 percent market penetration as the threshold for reaching fully half of the ‘late majority’ of technology adopters,” Apigee writes. “The impact of smartphones and apps on the shopping experience reached this milestone by 2013. Banking followed in 2014. Health management appears poised to do this by 2017. Expectations for digital’s impact on managing health over the next two years are now comparable to those we measured for banking in our 2013 survey.”
Of the total sample, 69 percent said they expect smartphones and apps to change how people manage their health — 68 percent said the same thing about banking in 2013. Eighty percent of respondents said they expect doctors to offer key services via an app within two years.
Overall, just 37 percent of the full survey group report being healthier thanks to their smartphone and apps. But that number jumped up to 66 percent for those who use wearables or apps to manage their health, 78 percent for respondents who use both, and 48 percent for all millennials.
A growing number of people want their doctor to use data they collect with fitness trackers or health apps. Forty-nine percent of smartphone owners and 53 percent of millennials agreed with the statement “I want my doctor to use my fitness tracker and/or health apps data” and 28 percent of millennials wanted their doctor to use that data “as a regular part of their practice.”
