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How Healthy is your Mobile Strategy?

, | July 14, 2017 | By

by Jim Dwyer – 

Mobile is the New Normal

The mobile experience your patients and members demand is the one they’re experiencing on their phone right now.  Your organization is being judged against Amazon and Facebook, not the mobile applications of other providers and health plans.

Eight in ten Americans have a smartphone and consumers spend more time on mobile applications than browsing the internet or watching television.  Their service expectations are high and increasing daily.  The Apple App store and Google Play store combined have more than 4.7 million mobile applications available.

Is Healthcare Behind?

Yes. 

One in four of the 200 largest providers and health plans do not offer a mobile application according to a recent RCG study of the largest 100 hospitals by beds and largest 100 health plans by revenue.

Of the 75% that do offer a mobile application, the distribution of application maturity is significant and many are little more than smaller versions of a member portal.

Why the Urgency?

The mobile health market has hit an inflection point.  Driven by the exponential growth in digital healthcare data coupled with the expansion of consumer digital access and wearable devices, mobility in healthcare has arrived.

Smartphones have become ubiquitous in the non-Medicare market, and smartphone ownership has doubled in the last two years in the 65+ age group (the cohort that consumes the most healthcare).

Blog 17-27-Smartphone graphic

 Achieve Mobile Excellence

There are so many improvements in patient health and care delivery efficiency that can be realized using mobile, that a strong overall mobile strategy is no longer optional and must be a top priority for any healthcare organization.  A successful mobile strategy:

  • Provides a variety of services
  • Includes comprehensively tested, stable mobile applications that are intuitive and easy to use
  • Engages the customer and improves their perception of your organization
  • Adopts mobile excellence as a critical strategic asset and differentiating capability of your organization

 Your Strategy – Accelerate Now!

No matter where you are with mobility, you should be going faster. 

Prioritize your organization’s consumer engagement goals (such as scheduling, physician messaging and prescription management, telemedicine, and member services), integrate your application development and testing approaches, and perform mistake-free catch up.

RCG helps our customers develop and execute mobile strategies through the planning, design, build, testing and deployment of mobile applications for global leaders in healthcare, entertainment, hospitality, and financial services. RCG’s multifaceted healthcare knowledge and technical savvy coupled with real-world payer and provider experience allow us to guide our clients successfully on their mobile excellence journey.

To Learn more:

Download our whitepaper that further discusses Healthcare and Mobility: What Executives Need to Know

Read more about our Healthcare solutions

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