Selfie diagnosis: what are telemedicine applications

The market for medical mobile applications will grow in the coming years due to both increased demand and supply, experts believe

According to Reports and Data, the global market for mobile health apps will reach almost $2027 billion by 312. The growth in popularity is easy to explain – it is both an increase in the overall level of care for one’s health and the availability of doctoral consultations through applications. Such services allow you to avoid serious medical errors: A common cause of misdiagnosis is ineffective doctor-patient communication. The use of artificial intelligence eliminates errors in most cases.

Market players

It is noteworthy that 40% of market participants do not belong to the healthcare sector. Medical startups around the world are actively attracting investments into the industry and are striving to make the product more and more user-friendly. The amount of injections into the industry in the United States in 2018 was a record $9,5 billion. However, the British are the leaders in financing medical digitization. The largest market player, Babylon Health, received more than $2019 million in private investment in 500.

Manufacturers of medical equipment occupy an active position in the market. AT&T, mQure, Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, Apple Inc., Omron Healthcare Inc., Samsung Electronics Corporation, Philips Healthcare, Bayer Healthcare, LifeWatch AG, Cardionet Inc. offer their health monitoring solutions. and others.

Segmented demand

According to experts, the number of annual downloads of medical applications will grow by 40% in the near future, while demand for them will become more segmented. An example of the development of Glooko is illustrative. Its authors were familiar with the problem of the growing number of patients with diabetes mellitus – each of them was diagnosed with this. Glooko’s governance platform connects physicians with their patients, provides a resource for professionals to monitor population health, and providers to monitor emergency notifications.

Fitness-related services practically do not lag behind in the expected growth (39,5% more downloads per year). One of the market leaders is the American company Fitbit, a manufacturer of electronics and wearable devices for monitoring activity and health, bought in 2019 by Google. In November 2019, it owned 19,3% of the market, sold more than 100 million devices, and 28 million users installed the Fitbit app.

mHealth applications are developed at different levels: private and public. They can serve the global goal of improving the quality of health care in the country. As a rule, services connect doctors and patients through the possibility of interaction, receiving consultations, tracking the dynamics of the state of health, and adjusting the treatment plan. One of these is ACT.md. from Activate Care. In the United States, the company was recognized as important at the national level: it is engaged in the supply of software for the coordination and management of the entire medical field and services.

Fighting the pandemic

A separate segment is applications that are used to combat the COVID-19 pandemic around the world. In our country, before the start of mass vaccination against coronavirus, software is being developed to monitor the use of the vaccine. Each vial will be marked with a QR code, and the data of the person who was injected with the vaccine will be associated with the application.

During the pandemic, services were also developed for diagnosing the state of health by various parameters (pulse, oxygenation, breathing sound), contact tracing, and quarantine for the sick. Similar applications for monitoring patients with coronavirus and the epidemiological situation in general have appeared in many countries around the world. For example, CovidDoc was introduced in Italy. The GPS application tracks the movement of patients, the web panel is intended for use by epidemiologists – doctors scan and upload the patient’s QR code and data on his health there.

What applications are there?

There are various options on the world market. They have a different principle of operation and functionality.

• Google the diagnosis

In the past, doctors strongly advised against self-diagnosis based on the results of queries on the Internet. But now applications can and should be asked questions in order to know in which direction to move and which doctor to run to in the first place.

This is how the WebMD application works. It is enough to enter personal data (gender, age), select the area that worries, mark the correct ones from the proposed indicators, and the application will give an assumption about possible health deviations. It is important to understand that this is not a diagnosis, but a reason to pay attention to your condition. There is a similar section on the WebMD website.

• Dr. piece of iron

The ADA application has an extended functionality of the questionnaire. Since 2016, it has been used in 140 countries around the world. The virtual doctor evaluates these symptoms and instantly asks clarifying questions. The application compares the received information with data from its own library. A bonus for users is a report format that is understandable to non-specialists with an explanation of the nature of the alleged disease.

• Selfie-diagnosis

The front camera of the phone is now used not only for selfies, but also for diagnostics. An express analysis of the whole organism can be carried out through Binah.ai – just point the camera at the face for two minutes. The app will scan and monitor vital signs such as heart rate, HRV, oxygenation, blood pressure and even mental stress. It not only gives the results, but also saves them, and can also compare the indicators with the norm.

• Skin diagnostics

The highly specialized SkinVision application is specialized in skin diagnostics. In 30 seconds, the algorithm scans the skin and evaluates the risk of cancer on a scale: low, medium, high. The application also reminds you of the timing of the re-examination. According to statistics, it detects the disease in 20% of users.

• Chatbot to the rescue

Thanks to video calling, you can visit any of the 250 doctors who work with the Babylon app. It also has a chatbot. The built-in symptom checker includes questions to identify family predispositions to diseases, assesses lifestyle and even mood. In the report, you can find recommendations for adjusting the level of activity, daily routine. The application can work with prescriptions and send them to the nearest pharmacy or patient’s office. The accuracy of diagnostics using artificial intelligence during the first testing of the application was 81% versus 72% for doctors.

• Vitamins and personal nutrition

Recently, Azbuka Vkusa invested 33,2 million rubles. to Biolink.Tech. Their joint project was the Otri app. The technical launch took place in early September, but the application can already be downloaded from the AppStore. This is a godsend for those who want to eat foods that help to lose weight and heal the body.

Through the application, you can order a blood test with a home visit from a Chromolab partner laboratory. The short program includes several parameters, the standard package includes a study on 15 biomarkers and a comprehensive analysis for vitamin D. Based on the results, taking into account data on age, activity and other parameters, the neural network and staff doctors develop a personal nutrition program for the user. Everything you need for cooking, as well as ready-made meals, can be ordered immediately at Azbuka Vkusa.

• Medical tests

Ornament is a free organizer for storing and tracking the dynamics of medical analysis indicators. You can enter data manually, upload a pdf-file or a photo. The recognition function is still being tested, after digitization, all data is additionally checked by a specialist manually, so sometimes the process can be delayed. The application assigns units of measurement by the name of the biomarker, analyzes the status and gives a hint on what to pay attention to.

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