Aetna CEO, Mark Bertolini spoke at the 2012 4th annual mHealth summit and summarized his companies outlook to mHealth. He made some very interesting points. First of all, he recognized that the health system was expensive and that it was useful for a company like Aetna to participate in mobile health initiatives to reduce cost. When we realize that the Health care issue is a $2.7 Trillion dollar issue then any small percentage reduction obviously makes a big difference.
The numbers that Mark mentioned are interesting. About 33% of people have used the phone for health related information. These numbers seem very high but presumably mean anything to do with health like checking or logging weight, reading about health issues or a broad area like that. Other estimates are at 11% so it seems that what is defined as health related use of the mobile device varies a lot. However, in either case, the numbers have been static over the past 3 years which means that the phone models or any other marketing does not seem to make a big difference. Phones are great for communicating with your friends and are not conventionally thought of as medical devices.
Much of his talk was dedicated to justification of purchase of mobile health companies and the integration with Aetna – Inexx, and Medicity to make it into a giant iTriage, Carepass platform. Great ideas on also optimizing cost with the Clinical capacity exchange wherein available services like flu-shot and office-visit are sold with the cost being set by supply and demand. Imagine a “Priceline” like service for common health visits. These are commendable financial goals but will be need to be tested in the market since health care is as much about people as much it is about health and costs.