4 Best Practices for Creating Behavior Changing Mobile Health Apps

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Wireless Innovation Council Research outlines 4 best practices for creating behavior changing mobile health apps that can influence healthier outcomes for patients. 

Mobile technology possesses a number of unique attributes to become a powerful behavior change agent in the transformation of healthcare with more than 50 percent of the world’s population owning a smartphone.  New advancements in analytics, Big Data and social media allow mobile devices to deliver a steady stream of health information with minimal effort required from the user to modify the expected behavior of an individual, or  achieve a healthier outcome.

A new report released by Mobiquity examines how mobile technology has become a cost-effective and scalable driver of behavior change in healthcare and other industries. “Designing an Effective Behavior Change Platform” outlines the findings of a comprehensive research effort into how mobile is currently used to influence behavior, and identifies best practices within a new Mobiquity framework that furthers the goal of using mobile health apps to achieve beneficial behavior change.

The research study was commissioned by Mobiquity, a professional services firm creating innovative mobile solutions and apps that drive business value, and the Wireless Innovation Council (WIC), an organization of leading innovative companies across several industries that identifies areas of mobile innovation and benchmarks how businesses should respond.

The report identifies several industry examples of the impact of mobile health solutions on behavior change in pharmaceuticals, health insurers, healthcare providers and wellness & fitness. For example, sensors, mobile alerts & reminders and cloud-based analytics, can be utilized to track when and how often medications are taken, and let patients know when they have missed a dosage.

Research findings revealed the following 4 best practices for creating behavior changing mobile health apps :

1. Create an individualized solution
A one-size-fits-all model with constant reminders will ultimately fail as a result of “reminder fatigue” or boredom. A combination of techniques, as well as variation in the timing and ordering of how they are applied, is critical. Examples may include self-logging, gamification, social feedback, self-measurement, auto-analytics, notifications, alerts and reminders.
2. Analytic models that trigger the appropriate interventions and outcomes for each user
These models should integrate context, personal profile, and short- and long-term behavior patterns to determine the appropriate intervention approach and timing. Cognitive psychology and behavior-economics techniques may lead to more sophisticated incentive models.
3. Personalized communications to increase engagement
It should be the individual who determines which means of communications (email, SMS, social, voice, etc.) is used instead of a generic approach.
4. Low-effort data collection
Sensors and wearables are great tools for efficient data collection on context and situation. Seamless self-logging and self-assessment can be powerful as long as they are easy and fast to use.
The report also includes Mobiquity’s Behavior Change Platform approach that analyzes the user’s profile, behavior and context to find the appropriate intervention and interaction taking into account content, timing and the form of communication
For more information or to download the full report, please visit:http://www.mobiquityinc.com/our-ideas/white-papers/designing-effective-behavior-change-platform

 References: 

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/new-mhealth-report-from-mobiquity-finds-mobile-has-power-to-drive-behavior-change-1814584.htm

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