Tag: disease management

In the early 90′s I was invited to join an expertgrup put together of The National Board of Health and Welfare in Sweden, in order to evaluate and create standards for IT-applications in healthcare. The launch of Windows and PC’s had created a hawoc of IT-applications without any clear specifications or standards.

Everybody was thrilled with the new technology that could make the health care more efficient and IT-companies an untapped market for huge profits. But not enough research was done and there where hospitals buying systems for millions of dollars that they never used. For several reasons, the applications did not “speak” to each other, the technology was obsolete and the lack of proper research for specifications.

Another problem was support and education. International companies sold IT-solutions to countries without building up local support organisations and soon they became more of a problem than the effective support system to the health care workers.

It took years for some hospitals – more or less the 90′s – to get a working IT-infrastructure that supported the organisation and was costeffective.

Are we doing the same mistakes now with mHealth services? I have read articles and listened to speaches on Conferences that clearly indicates that. New companies are formed without proper medical expertise or research and a myriad of “mHealth apps” are launched weekly. (more…)