By John Lavey | Hammock President and COO

Ten years ago today, Rex Hammock stood in line at the Green Hills Apple store and bought a couple of the brand new iPhones. I received one.

My earliest memory of the iPhone was the sheer wonder the device caused. I was at an airport gate the week it was released, and people asked me if they could hold the iPhone. It was like I was holding a golden retriever puppy.

We all know how much the iPhone has changed our lives over the last 10 years. At least half of you are probably reading this on an iPhone.

In a recent Ars Technica article, the author notes that the importance of mobile technologies in delivering healthcare matches the significance of the automobile to doctors in the early 20th century, as this gem from the 1906 JAMA (Journal of American Medicine) illustrates:

“To no class is the development of the automobile of more importance than to physicians. How to reach their patients in the quickest, surest, easiest and cheapest manner is a practical problem to them.”

Reaching patients in the quickest, surest, easiest and cheapest manner is now possible with mobile devices. No other device levels socioeconomic divides or creates the potential for more access to quality care than the mobile phone.

Utah House Rep. Jason Chaffetz caused a stir recently with comments that proposed a faulty choice for lower-income Americans: spending on healthcare or on an iPhone.

“And so maybe rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and they want to go spend hundreds of dollars on that, maybe they should invest that in their own healthcare,” Chaffetz said.

The future of access to healthcare (appointment scheduling, prescription refills, fitness apps and telemedicine) is mobile. The place where we will interact with much of our healthcare is mobile. As marketers, we are charged with becoming more effective at creating authentic relationships in this new space.

In our next Idea Email, we will dig into examples of healthcare marketers that are succeeding at communicating via mobile.

 

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Image Credit | iStock



About Hammock Healthcare Idea Email |
This post is part of Hammock’s award-winning Idea Email series. Idea Emails are sent every other week and share one insightful marketing idea. Idea Email comes in two flavors: Original and Healthcare. To subscribe to the original Idea Email (general marketing ideas), click here . To subscribe to the Healthcare Idea Email (healthcare marketing ideas), click here.