Contrary to reports claiming that many “old school” physicians are resistant to mobile health technologies, let alone mobile health applications, the latest research available shows just the opposite reality emerging in modern medicine.

In fact, 93% of physicians believe that mobile health apps can improve a patient’s health outcome, eClinicalWorks reports. What’s more, 89% of doctors are likely to recommend a mobile health app to a patient.

“In order to transform healthcare, patients need to be engaged,” said Girish Kumar Navani, CEO and co-founder of eClinicalWorks. “People are invested in and want to be engaged in their health as long as they trust the source of the information.”

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It’s an incredible statistic that underscores the rampant adoption of mHealth tools by physicians eager to bolster quality healthcare through the advancements of contemporary technology.

A new survey of healthcare providers conducted by eClinicalWorks, a market leader in ambulatory clinical systems, shows that 93 percent of physicians find value in having a mobile health app connected to electronic health records (EHRs).

The same survey found that 93 percent of physician respondents believe that mobile health apps can improve a patient’s health outcome.

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We wanted to give you the heads up that mHealthWatch will be on the ground in Washington D.C. next week to bring you on-site coverage of the annual mHealth Summit.

Building on last year’s massive success, this year’s event promises to be even bigger – highlighting emerging best practices from mHealth implementations as well as the latest business, finance, policy and technical perspectives from throughout the healthcare industry.  This year’s summit will be the go-to event for everything mobile healthcare, including more than 400 exhibitors showcasing innovative devices, services, applications, tools and related solutions.  Organizers are expecting more than 4,500 healthcare leaders from nearly 50 different countries around the world.

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Contests to help spur innovation in the mHealth application market is nothing new — we’ve seen countless apps emerge from such events around the world as the mobile healthcare industry continues to gain incredible momentum.

The latest event to produce such innovation took place just before the Health 2.0 Europe Conference in Berlin, in which Aetna sponsored a code-a-thon with EUR 10K worth of prizes.  Aetna invited the best developers, designers, health experts and health tech entrepreneurs to compete on the challenge of developing “innovative mobile apps to promote health and wellness across the globe.”

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I came across an interesting infographic that does a great job detailing the massive growth we’re seeing in the mHealth space, as well as the overall sentiment towards mobile health technologies on behalf of American consumers and physicians alike.

According to the graphic there were more than 1 billion visits to physicians’ offices in the U.S during 2011.  According to the survey driving the data for the infographic, it was found that 40% of doctors believe mobile health technologies can reduce the number of office visits.  In addition, 80% of doctors are already using smartpthones and medical apps, of which there are more than 10,000 available in Apple’s iTunes App Store.

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It was announced today that Kony Solutions, makers of a multi-channel application development platform called KonyOne, has launched an updated version of its mHealth application targeted at healthcare payers.

The updated mobile app is targeted at payers looking to offer members end-to-end mobile solutions, in addition to putting secure health plan information at the patient’s fingertips, on any mobile device they want to use.  Kony’s multi-channel platform supports 99% of mobile devices in use today, including Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows, J2ME devices, HTML5, native or hybrid applications as well as older mobile web browsers.

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It’s been revealed that more than $439M has been poured into 70 different Web 2.0 healthcare startups that develop mobile health apps and tools for online social networking and collaboration in 2011.

In 2010, a little more than $305M was raised for 43 different deals, meaning 2011 showed a 44% increase in dollars invested and a 63% increase in deals funded compared to 2010.  ”We are at the very early stages of an evolution in the entire healthcare system,” Jessica Canning, global research director for Dow Jones VentureSource, told InformationWeek Healthcare. “We are essentially witnessing the democratization of healthcare where detailed information is being collected both from healthy people as well as individuals trying to improve their physical wellness.”

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