Empowering Patients: The Rise of Prescription Apps

Recently, when Arun, a salaried employee aged 35, went for a routine health check-up, he found out that he has diabetes. In addition to the medication, his doctor ‘prescribed’ a digital therapy, delivered through a smartphone app, to help him manage his diabetes. With increasing smartphone penetration in the country, mobile applications have become an integral part of our lives. There’s a smartphone app to optimise every aspect of our lives, be it business, utilities, lifestyle, entertainment, fitness and now even chronic health outcomes.

Several prescription apps have entered the market over the years and an increasing number of doctors across the globe are prescribing these apps to their patients, notably to those who have chronic illnesses like diabetes.

But what are prescription-based apps, and how do they work? With 350,000 health apps in the app stores and 200+ added each day, how do you know what actually works?

At their core, prescription based-apps help empower patients to manage their chronic conditions on aspects of self-management and/or monitoring, which may not be possible for the patient to do alone. They help advise and guide patients to improve their behaviours and learn new skills to manage the specific condition. They empower clinicians with real-time data to monitor patients better and deliver clinical insights to healthcare professionals to take better treatment decisions.

Prescription apps, especially those focused on improving patient behaviour, are built on the back of clinically validated guidelines and behavioural science. They focus on improving the users’ ability, motivation and skill to learn and adopt the new behaviours necessary to manage one’s health. Through the use of virtual support, notifications and logic-based insights, they prompt the patient to take timely action towards better health on a daily and ongoing basis. Most importantly, they continue to generate evidence of their efficacy and safety in their journeys towards better patient outcomes. They act as companion therapeutics to boost the ability of the patient to achieve better health.

For patients like Arun, self-management skills are necessary to improve their health outcomes. In addition to taking medications regularly and on schedule, he needs to build several other behaviours that are new to him – like balancing his plate with the right amount of fibres and proteins, checking his blood sugar more often, bringing sustainable activity into his current inactive life, dealing with and overcoming temptation, etc. Without regular guidance or support on each of these aspects, it is all the more daunting to not only build but also manage these skills as sustainable habits.

Prescription apps serve to solve a gap between the patient’s intent and their skill and behaviour, so as to deliver on what's actually needed for better health. Even though a patient might say that their health is a priority, they may not have the motivation to make a behavioural change or have the necessary skills or knowledge to act on it. By focusing on the now, and helping patients in real-time, every day, through mini decisions and moments that matter, these prescription apps behave as the companion therapeutic that’s needed to solve the gap in the current episodic healthcare system. Be it diabetes, hypertension, mental health or respiratory issues, prescription apps are just what the doctor ordered.

Managing a chronic illness is a difficult job. Prescription apps make it a little easier.

Understanding what actually works and doesn't work for a patient is difficult for a busy clinician. Prescription apps make that decision-making process a lot smarter. Empowering Arun and millions like him to take better control of their health is an important step in solving large healthcare problems.

The article has been authored by Dr Siddhesh Kolwankar, head of the clinical team at Wellthy Therapeutics.

Dr Siddhesh Kolwankar

Guest Author The author is the Head of clinical team at Wellthy Therapeutics. He has over 8 years of experience in healthcare, having worked in various aspects of healthcare from delivery to Healthcare IT in the United States and India.