Less than 1 percent of Japanese doctors have actually used mobile technology for monitoring diabetes patients, according to paper published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.

While only 0.8 per cent of respondents had actually used the technology,  a further 25.9 percent were aware of what remote monitoring could do but had not used it with their patients. And 73.2 per cent were defined by the paper as not being well informed about such mobile services. The survey was based on a questionnaire among 471 physicians in Japan.

Most published studies focus on the adoption of remote monitoring from the patient perspective. Research from the physician perspective is “almost non-existent” says the paper and matters for two reasons.

One reason is that patients are not really the “customers” of remote monitoring services. It is actually the physicians who choose them, so their experience is significant. Secondly, research indicates that close collaboration between physicians and medical device vendors is positive for innovation because of the feedback provided by the medical profession. The lack of experience revealed in the survey shows where work needs to be done.