Health apps have untapped potential for brands to engage with customers in Asia

The increasing penetration of smartphone has been driving the development of mobile applications. Among hundreds of thousands of apps that are available for downloading, healthcare and wellness apps have stood out as one of the fastest-growing types.

The Apple App store now has 17,000 healthcare-related apps globally, 60 per cent of which are aimed at consumers, according to Frost & Sullivan figures from January 2013.

Some successful examples across Asia-Pacific include lifestyle-management apps supporting healthier eating and exercise, such as Nike+ FuelBand, RunKeeper, Lose It!, and Great Eastern Insurance’s "Great Eastern 21 Days" app.

Darren Magick, managing director for Southeast Asia at McCann Health, agreed that apps are fantastic tools to help support decision-making around generally healthier lifestyles through advice, tracking and monitoring functionality.

“Success in healthcare increasingly means going beyond 'product' and into 'programme' support, including apps which are key value-adds that can truly set a brand apart,” Magick said. “In an increasingly undifferentiated marketplace, a great app associated with a great product is a hard combination to beat.”

Overall, health app adoption by brands in Asia is still low, with much of the activity being of a 'pilot' nature—more tactical than strategic—he added.

App adopters

In general, adults aged 18 to 35 in the more technologically advanced markets with greater smartphone penetration are early adopters in the Asia-Pacific region, but anyone with an interest in managing health and obtaining wellness is a potential user.

“It’s important to not assume that older people do not have the interest,” said Marcus Sigurdsson, regional digital catalyst (Asia) for McCann Health. “It's just that an overall lower adoption rate of smartphones and apps by default makes the health app uptake smaller.”

Bedi also agreed that the challenge is in capturing the ‘silver’ segment, which are the greatest users of healthcare.

“This is where a well-planned, multichannel and integrated communications campaign for a healthcare brand could potentially be a smarter investment to drive behaviour change and ROI,” she said.

“Health apps are great as a tool to empower patients and caregivers to become more actively involved in their care, particularly prevention and adherence to treatment/healthy behaviours,” said Bedi. “The concern however is that apps alone cannot facilitate a complete behaviour change process. People and partnerships are still needed.”

“One of key growth driver [of health apps] is the increasing interest in personal health,” said Nooruddin. “Asians are becoming more concerned with health and health risks. This, in the context of increasingly hectic lifestyles and a digitally connected population, fuels the appeal of health apps.”

According to the McCann study, Japan, a country with the highest levels of robotics and technological health services in the world, is seeing a ‘symbiotic’ relationship between technology and human healthcare. Rather than technology being a replacement for doctors, it is recognised as the best way to extend their effectiveness.

However, in Asian countries as diverse as China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and India, access to healthcare remains a major challenge.

“We see the use of health apps as a means to facilitate collaboration and exchange between physicians, care-givers, and grassroots medical communities,” Nooruddin said.

“South Korea, Indonesia and increasingly China are taking to health applications with gusto, reflecting an increasing trend toward health literacy in these markets,” said Magick. “Other markets are following suit, but health apps and smartphone infrastructure lags behind intention.”

Regulation a factor

Sigurdsson pointed out that it is important to differentiate between healthcare and wellness apps. Examples of the former, such as measuring blood glucose, will need extensive testing and approval from regulatory organisations, while wellness applications, such as tracking what you eat, do not require the same processes.

“It’s important to keep in mind that the main users of apps will use them to live a healthier life, not to treat a condition,” he said.

“For those conditions that are more specific and sensitive, apps need to reflect this sensitivity and provide the built-in ability to tailor the functionality and information provided to users’ health needs,” Magick added. “This kind of personalisation vastly improves relevance and therefore uptake.”

Hence, as a quality assurance, regulation becomes vital.

Magick explained that emerging regulations can guide the kind of content that can be provided, and in which circumstances and importantly, what kind of health claims may be made.

“As the [US] FDA [Food and Drug Administration] is still developing guidelines for apps, doctors are naturally concerned that patients will treat themselves without medical guidance," Bedi said. "Thus they do not promote or endorse these apps due to concerns about patient safety and liability.”