QVIA Institute has officially published results from its latest report, which claims that digital health tools are expanding in scope and function to aid patient diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring.
According to certain reports, a larger chunk of the solutions is now focused on specific diseases, as their commercial appeal has grown with developers building solutions that bring value back to providers. You see, these solutions are more easily integrated with health systems, and at the same time, they also embrace innovation, such as AI to personalize care and reduce provider workload.
Not just that, product type has also expanded, with health assessment tools such as digital diagnostics, sensor-based digital measures, and remote patient monitoring solutions joining digital therapeutics and consumer health apps to offer value for personal health and clinical care.
Talk about the given report on a slightly deeper level, we begin from the availability of digital health apps where, out of the 337,000 digital health apps currently available, disease-specific apps continue to grow in number. You see, while many continue to support mental health and patients with diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, recently-launched apps also help those with visual impairments, auditory issues, and dermatologic conditions.
You see, since their breakout in 2008, more than 1 million digital health apps have been created so far. Having said so, two-thirds of these are no longer marketed, reflecting a high level of churn as many developers failed to differentiate their apps. This means consumer/patient uptake is relatively slow and financial returns have been meager.
Markedly enough, apps with stronger clinical evidence have seen higher rates of use and more rapid uptake. This makes it a key driver of consumer adoption and commercial success, whereas increased stakeholder focus is placed on evidence generation.
Next up, we must into the prospect of digital therapeutics. Basically, approvals and adoption of DTx, which treat or alleviate disease by delivering a medical intervention, have emerged as opportunities to gain regulatory approval and reimbursement. Here, 140 have received approval in one or more countries. They are also applicable for patient use at home, as well as for more than 220 software-based digital therapies to be used by providers within digital care programs or in their clinics, totaling more than 360 commercially-available digital therapies.
Markedly enough, the best level of progress has been witnessed across Germany, which has led the regulatory process and reimburses for 56 DTx, followed by the U.S. with 46 approved and the UK with 20. This involves leveraging behavioral approaches to treat mental health and chronic diseases, such as diabetes and hypertension. On top of that, thanks to recent approvals, the whole mechanism now also accommodates biofeedback and virtual reality to reduce various types of pain, treat visual impairments, support respiratory and post-stroke neurological rehabilitation, while simultaneously treating PTSD and phobias.
Then, the report covers sensor-based digital measures. You see, these measures are making it possible for general population to actively track nuanced aspects of health and patient experience. As for in patient care and in clinical development programs for innovative medicines, sensor-based measures have already proven their mettle for remotely monitoring patients, demonstrating the effects of therapeutic interventions, and tracking outcomes.
Even the life sciences companies are now turning towards the creation and validation of new digital endpoints, with some building molecule-to-market digital strategies that overlay their drug development programs.
“The landscape of digital health has evolved over the past two years, yielding new products that are more commercially viable and meet the needs of stakeholders across a broadening set of uses,” said Murray Aitken, executive director at IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science. “Digital health tools now support both patients and providers as they move from diagnosis to treatment and disease monitoring, with their scope expanding as new health assessment tools such as digital diagnostics have joined more mature digital therapies, accelerating care and closing gaps to improve health outcomes.”