Denmark has emerged as the best country to start an mHealth business, according to a survey conducted by research2guidance in partnership with HIMSS Europe. Over 5,000 app developers, healthcare professionals and mHealth practitioners took part in the European mHealth App Market Ranking survey, and were asked to rank the mHealth app market readiness of the 28 EU member states.

The results, which establish Denmark as having the best market pre-requisites needed for an mHealth business, are based on the average of the scores in five categories: eHealth adoption; level of digitalisation; market potential; ease of starting an mHealth business; and the mHealth regulatory framework in the country.

“Denmark has a very digitalised society and is familiar with using technology in healthcare, supported by a regulatory framework,” said Hans Erik Henriksen, CEO of Healthcare Denmark. “The research2guidance and HIMSS Europe survey confirms the progress we are making. I sincerely hope that this will inspire the European countries and mHealth community in their efforts to progress mobile solutions, which will make a big difference for our citizens.”

Denmark ranked top country for eHealth adoption, being the only country where exchanging patients’ medical data electronically is used amongst 91 per cent of doctors; the average for other covered countries was just 34 per cent. In terms of market attractiveness and healthcare investments, Denmark is at the top in the mHealth market potential category, together with Austria which also has one of the highest expenditures for health.

The ease of starting an mHealth business category describes how easy it is to start and maintain a new business based on the number of days needed to start a business, the number of necessary start-up procedures to register a business, and the level of tax and. Denmark also ranked extremely high in this category, as the smaller countries – Ireland was top in this category – tend to support new businesses better than larger countries.