Boomers and Digital Health
Born between 1946 and 1964, the baby boomer generation represents a very large market opportunity for digital health stakeholders, including providers, payers, and developers of tech-enabled services and sensor-based gadgets such as mobile apps, activity trackers, wearable patches, and personal health devices.
Baby Steps: Will Boomers Buy Into Mobile Health? was written by Laurie Orlov for the California Healthcare Foundation to look at digital health market opportunities and challenges among this important demographic. The report’s optimism is driven by the immense opportunity to address rising healthcare costs but is guarded by disappointing adoption so far and the need for lifestyle changes among boomers themselves. It concludes:
Baby boomers are poised to bring on a wave of health costs, and inventors are eager to find ways to meet their needs, ultimately averting unneeded medical services and expense. The experts interviewed for this report acknowledged that the fitness wearable market is still in its infancy. It is too early to determine if providers are willing to accommodate data that can now be transmitted to them. Further, smartphone apps to monitor calories and tricorder technologies to measure vital signs produce data that will eventually need to augment established patient data. Electronic Health Records are not yet portable between physicians who are based in separate medical practices. And expansion of access, subsidized cost of insurance, or doctor availability may stymie care of lower income boomers, leaving the ER as their only ready access to care. … Further, there is uncertainty for innovators, providers, and consumers. … Experts acknowledged that part of the dilemma is sorting out useful from useless apps. From the consumer perspective, AARP notes that while health apps can help improve everything from balance to breathing, today’s mobile health world is at the “wild, wild west” stage.
While adoption of digital health technologies depends on function and design factors to meet real needs, it also depends largely on boomer lifestyles. Will they actually use the apps and gadgets consistently and pay attention to the results? Charlotte Yeh of AARP Services summarized the market adoption dilemma, saying “If you think about health outcomes, 20% is genetics, 20% is the health care delivery system [including digital health technologies], and 60% is lifestyle.” I can generally agree with that.