In a recent #HITsm chat, someone suggested that the mHealth Tipping point would be when mHealth was as addicting as Angry Birds (sorry I can’t find the tweet to give specific credit to the person). I thought about the idea. No doubt, it would be great if mHealth apps were as addicting as Angry Birds or other mobile games like it. However, I don’t think we want mHealth apps to follow a similar adoption curve to Angry Birds. In fact, I think that mHealth apps today are very much like the Angry Birds adoption curve. Here’s my response to the Angry Birds comparison.
mHealth tipping point is not when it's like angry birds. It's when it's like text messaging. #HITsm
— EMR, EHR and HIT (@ehrandhit) November 21, 2014
The problem with Angry Birds is that someone uses it religiously for a while and then they kind of burn out and stop playing the game. Does that sound like mHealth apps today?
This is why I hope that mHealth apps are more like text messaging app than an Angry Birds app. A text messaging app is something you rely on and use every day. It’s something that provides ongoing value to you and so you never stop using it. It becomes an indispensable part of how you spend your day.
Plus, how many of us think about our text messaging app? You don’t download it. You don’t think, “Oh, I need to use that app.” No, you just use it all the time and other people interact with you through it as well. This is the model that the most successful mHealth apps will have to follow.
