According to a recent Pyramid Research report, there are more than 200 million mobile health care applications currently in use.  Mobile presents a huge opportunity in the health care and pharmaceutical markets for facilitating communication between doctors and patients, enabling access to more in-depth and real time medical information, and in the marketing and advertising of new drugs.

There was a great article in PharmaExec earlier this month on how mobile will impact the health care industry, “Mobile Health: Will Cellular Doom the Paper Chase?.” It references a Pricewaterhouse Coopers study which stated “70 percent of physicians currently use their mobile devices five times a day or more to access information. Additionally, 80 percent of physicians were interested in mobile technology for prescribing.”

When it comes to 2D barcodes in the healthcare industry, there is definitely a benefit in using them for promoting new medications, but the real value will be once the medications are already on the market. Where you will see leaps and bounds in this industry is on enterprise applications to track medications and enable patients to access information directly from their pill bottles.

Most hospitals already use 1D barcodes on medications as part of their supply chain to make sure the right drugs are getting to the right people.  1D barcodes are designed to serve a specific purpose, such as identifying the medication or the price.  2D barcodes, on the other hand, can contain much more information and have multiple uses.

For example, the code could be scanned by a doctor to deliver certain information, such as the patient’s medical condition and history, while the same code could be scanned using the pharmacist’s scanner to reveal different information, such as other medication the patient is taking to avoid dangerous drug interactions.   Additionally, the patient could scan that code to find out dosage information.

While the promise of mobile and 2D barcodes is large, the regulatory nature of this industry may hamper adoption.  There are stricter guidelines when it comes to pharmaceuticals and protecting patient information, and certain precautions are necessary to protect the privacy of patients.

We’re not talking about a coupon from a woman’s magazine, but rather scanning for an identifier which can be much more personal and confidential. There has to be a more secure system to manage identity and ensure the security and privacy of the information being shared.

Neustar’s mobile barcode clearinghouse can provide an infrastructure for security and privacy.  Our clearinghouse model not only enables interoperability between carriers and campaign managers from a technical level, but also gives users confidence that their transactions are trusted, secure, and private.

With this kind of protected infrastructure in place, healthcare and pharmaceutical companies can deliver a more meaningful consumer experience while ensuring that the personal information about individuals remains private.