Trending: Health IT in 2013

AT&T released predictions Monday for 2013’s biggest health IT trends:

• A shift from stand-alone mobile health apps to “sponsored mHealth solutions” from health-insurance companies, health care providers, employers and other stakeholders, resulting in more patients using the apps and participating more fully in their own health care.
• The movement of more health data into the cloud, where data analytics will “better manage health care costs by finding and addressing patient needs earlier.”
• Large-scale adoption of remote monitoring of patients with chronic conditions.
• mHealth applications that can integrate with other devices, apps and data and be safely shared across different vendors’ health IT platforms.
• Significant growth in the telehealth market, bringing more access to health care in areas without enough physicians to meet demand.

"Physicians make better treatment decisions and predictions based on better data, so we must have better access to information when patients need it the most," said Dr. Geeta Nayyar, chief medical information officer at AT&T ForHealth, in a statement. "These kinds of technologies have the potential to help people make the shift from being reactive to being proactive with their care."