Lena Cheng, MD, Business Development, Doctor on Demand shares her insights at the Connected Health Summit: Engaging Consumers. Lena spoke on the "Moving the Digital Health Market Forward: Consumers Take Charge" panel at the 2014 event.

What is the most important next step for healthcare providers to engage consumers in digital health solutions?
What’s on people’s minds is “how can I get access to high quality, low cost, efficient healthcare?” Any digital health solutions that are going to be embraced by healthcare providers and consumers alike need to be all those things as well as user-friendly and a joy/pleasure to use or experience. Increasingly, consumers, in particular, are expecting more from healthcare—better value, better service, more transparency—and digital health solutions can help to address those expectations.

What will be the biggest impact for consumers as a result of digital health solutions?
Maintaining or improving health will increasingly move away from being addressed in a single point-in-time. No longer will consumers need to be in the same room with healthcare providers or expensive equipment for screening, diagnosis, treatment, or prevention. Digital health solutions are enabling consumers to incorporate health management into their daily lives, whether they’re at work, home, or on the go.

What will be the biggest driver for the digital health market?
Lowering healthcare costs will be the biggest driver. However, lowering costs needs to be done in a sustainable way, and that means smart digital health solutions that facilitate behavior change in a sustainable way and for the longer term.