Healthcare providers and insurers see a good future ahead for mobile health services and apps, especially apps that can help to diagnosis and treat chronic disease.

But there are several road blocks, especially over consumer expectations for better security and privacy, that healthcare providers and payers must get past in order to make the use of mobile health and apps more mainstream. Those are among the conclusions from a new survey of 2,000 healthcare executives from healthcare technology and consulting firm Change Healthcare.

“Healthcare leaders continue to be disappointed by weak consumer adoption of mobile and digital health tools,” the survey says. “Few would be surprised to see security and privacy emphasized as major factors for this, and this was pointed to by nearly half of survey participants (48.7%).”

With a plethora of health and wellness apps already available for download and use by consumers—about 325,000 and growing, according to research firm Research2Guidance.com—healthcare organizations face a tough challenge in getting patients to trust and use a particular app, says Change Healthcare.

For example, healthcare organizations hear from patients and users that many apps have only limited functionality (35.4%), deliver a poor user experience (32.3%) and won’t let users share or transfer data (13.9%). “Compounding these concerns are regulations around patient data privacy and security, which make it challenging if not impossible to provide transparency, easy data exchange, access and sharing and an exceptional end-user experience,” the survey says.

Despite challenges, nearly 80% of respondents believe diagnostic apps have the greatest potential to transform healthcare in the future. Other types of apps also are will have an impact on future healthcare delivery and management. For example, 50% of respondents say wellness apps and fitness trackers are influencing health behavior today and 37% of healthcare executives believe that impact will increase over time.

41% of respondents say health monitoring devices are also having an impact and 54% expect these devices to become more significant in coming years, as mobile sensors and their analytics software continues to improve, the survey says.

“Optimism arises from a belief that mobile technologies will continue to improve their ability to help patients self-diagnose, and help patients determine whether they should engage a medical professional— either in the real world or via telehealth,” Change Healthcare says.