Tag: mHealth

Everyone wants to jump on the “mHealth train”. But so many for the wrong reasons!

Returning from a business trip to Asia, I discovered – yet again – that organizations use the mHealth word to increase their profile as a care provider to their customers. Unfortunatly, without having a real mHealth service.

In this case a phone number is provided to the mobile phone user. In case of illness he/she can call in and get to a triage system, where hospital helpdesk is guiding the person based on questions to the right specialist.

To me this is mearely an improvement of traditional customer care, not a mHealth service. A mHealth service should be an extension of care outside the care setting, using wireless technology. In simple terms; the care of the patient – surveillance, control of symptoms, patient education, tailoring the medication to the patients needs, monitoring treatment progress, real time patient diary etc. – are areas where wireless technology can be used. And that is the definition of a real mHealth application.

As with any brand, misuse can destroy it. Let’s try to keep the mHealth word “clean”. In it’s true meaning it can and should give the caregiver credit for implementing this for the patients so useful service!

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…)