MHW learned on Friday that Harry Wang, Senior Director of Research at Parks Associates, will speak next week at mHealth + Telehealth World.

According to a statement provided to media, Wang to address “the rising consumerism in the U.S. healthcare industry and examine system-wide approaches to digital health.”

He will also discuss new findings from the firm’s 360 View: Empowering Healthcare Consumers, which includes a 2Q 2016 survey of U.S. broadband households on connected healthcare attitudes and adoption.

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The following is a guest contributed post from Harry Wang, Director Research at Parks Associates.

Parks Associates consumer research reports 11% of U.S. broadband households with children have a smart watch, and 16% plan to buy one by mid-year 2016. Ten percent of Spanish broadband households own a smart watch, followed by 8% in the UK, 7% in Germany, and 6% in France.

The expansion of mobile device platforms to wearable form factors is creating many opportunities for developers to build services and applications for wearables in the smart watch space. APIs play a key role in developing these apps.

The smart watch’s easy access makes it a great mobile device to act as a remote control for smarthome features such as turning on lights remotely, closing garage doors, adjusting thermostat settings, and many more features. Some of the key challenges in implementing these features are the relatively low processing power of smart watches compared with smartphones. Additionally, the small size of the screen makes user interaction difficult for setting up complex scenarios and workflows.

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Parks Associates is out with a new report showing that 41% of caregivers in U.S. broadband households currently use a digital health device as part of their “caregiving routine,” (including 8% who use online tools to coordinate their efforts.”

“Among U.S. broadband households, 22% have a head of household who currently provides care for a family member or anticipates doing so in the near future,” said Harry Wang, Director of Health & Mobile Product Research at Parks Associates.

According to Wang, the dawn of digital health devices will be more apparent than ever next month at CES 2015.
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As the 2014 Connected Health Summit continues Friday, new digital health data is coming to light courtesy of the Summit’s organizers.

Parks Associates finds that 27% of U.S. broadband households “currently own and use at least one connected health device.”

The survey data also reveals that 13% of U.S. broadband households are very likely to purchase a connected health device in the next 12 months.
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Ahead of the Labor Day holiday weekend, mHealthWatch was notified that executives from Wellness & Prevention, Inc., a Johnson & Johnson company, will participate in the session “Population Health Management: Tracking Technology’s Impact” and host a special workout session to showcase the updated Johnson & Johnson Official 7 Minute Workout App during the 2014 Connected Health Summit: Engaging Consumers.

The Summit kicks off today in San Diego, California.

According to details shared with us, John Vander Meulen, General Manager, Wellness & Prevention, Inc., joins executives from Alere Connect, Welltok, Optum, and Wellframe during the session “Population Health Management: Tracking Technology’s Impact” take place this morning.
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Next week, The Connected Health Summit: Engaging Consumers will commence at the Omni Hotel in San Diego, California.

The event’s organizers, Parks Associates, have announced ahead of the Summit that Chris Nicholson, CEO of a newly forming Connected Health Start-up (in stealth mode) and former VP & COO of Humana Wellness, will deliver the keynote address, “Applying Connected Health to the Wellness Market: The ‘Triple Threat’ Driving Growth.”

The keynote will be delivered the morning of Thursday, September 4th, as the two-day Summit gets underway.

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People may joke about paying an office visit to “Dr. Google,” but it’s more true than most people know.

According to new research from Parks Associates, in the last 12 months, more than 38 percent of consumers in U.S. broadband households searched for health information online.

Another 27 percent used the Web sites of their care providers or insurers to obtain information, according to the Parks Associates report.

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