UK is a healthy market for health-E apps

According to a recent survey of 5,000 app developers, healthcare professionals and digital health practitioners, 55 per cent of respondents ranked the UK as the top market in the European Union for mobile health apps. Other countries to make the Top 5 were Denmark, Finland, Netherlands and Sweden.

Respondents ranked the 28 countries of the European Union based on their experiences and explained their findings using factors such as; digital health adoption, level of digitalization, market size and health expenditure, ease of starting a business and the digital health regulatory framework.

The main reason cited by the survey for the UK doing so well, was that UK doctors had an open and positive attitude towards using new technologies along with a predilection towards integrating e-health into patients’ treatments.

Germany and France are seen to have “enormous potential” because of substantial investment in their doctors and hospitals. On the other hand, both countries appear to be more reluctant to embrace the digitalization of healthcare illustrated by their low rankings for digital health adoption in the survey.

By the end of 2013, a Berg Insight report found that around 4.7 million people in Europe were using some kind of connected care system. The report also found that the growth of connected care would see some 13.7 million Europeans using some kind of connected care system.