Latest Podcast



Featured Articles

Ofcom helps protect customers against unexpected roaming charges

Ofcom helps protect customers against unexpected roaming charges

UK service providers must notify customers when they connect to a different network

New rules from UK telecoms regulator Ofcom will protect customers when they use their mobile phone on a foreign network. In addition, customers will be alerted if they are inadvertently roaming, perhaps because they're near an international border.
Author: The Fonecast
0 Comments
Article rating: No rating

Global smartphone market is set for recovery, says new forecast

A new forecast from research specialists Canalys shows the smartphone market is set to recover next year. Worldwide shipments declined by 12% last year but that decline is expected to slow to 5% this year.
Author: The Fonecast
0 Comments
Article rating: No rating
Vodafone and Three plan to merge their UK businesses

Vodafone and Three plan to merge their UK businesses

New Hutchison/Vodafone network would be biggest UK operator

Vodafone Group plc and CK Hutchison Group Telecom Holdings Limited have agreed to combine their UK telecommunication businesses, respectively Vodafone UK and Three UK. The merger will create a large new network operator to compete with Virgin Media O2 and EE.
Author: The Fonecast
0 Comments
Article rating: No rating

UK mobile payment service Paym to close in March 2023

UK mobile payment service Paym will close on 7th March 2023. The service, which allowed users to make and receive payments using their mobile phone numbers, was launched in 2014.
Author: The Fonecast
0 Comments
Article rating: No rating
Qualcomm legal action moves forward in the UK

Qualcomm legal action moves forward in the UK

Which? seeks payout for Samsung and Apple smartphone owners

Consumer protection organisation Which? has been given permission by the UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal to represent Apple and Samsung smartphone buyers in a legal case against chip manufacturer Qualcomm.
Author: The Fonecast
0 Comments
Article rating: No rating
RSS

Opinion Articles

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

What's the value of mHealth?

James Rosewell writes:

Helping thefonecast.com answer this rather abstract question is the team at Mobile Monday who invited us to their Monday evening event in London dedicated to the subject. A panel of experts from various fields and countries were assembled to present on their experiences and debate the subject.

Any healthcare solution involving some component of mobile technology seems to come under the banner mHealth. That’s where the 'm' comes from after all. A solution that captures information about diabetes sufferers' blood sugar levels via prompted text messages and relays this information to a physician would be considered an mHealth solution. Providing feedback to the diabetes patient about a change in dosage following review by the physician makes the solution even better. Linking devices that automatically monitor blood sugar levels and dispense insulin involving a remote computer and physician to monitor the real-time situation moves the solution on a level still. All these examples show how mobile technology can be used to improve quality of life.

So the good news for the non-technologist [ed: such as Iain?] is there doesn’t need to be very much technology involved in mHealth solutions. The bad news is that the chain of components, individuals and organisations required to deliver these solutions is vast. Co-ordinating all these stakeholder groups to gain agreement is a herculean task. Barry Flaherty of Grow based in Qatar presented the following slide which highlights the stakeholder groups involved, and this doesn't even show patients and health care professionals.

Grow mHealth Stakeholders

[Diagram provided courtesy of Grow].

According to Sophia Salenius of RegPoint one of the barriers to deployment of mHealth applications is the mobile network operator. The time and cost involved is minimal. The benefits could be vast. A network operator only needs to invest a minimal amount of time and effort deploying a simple solution to market. Network operators represent a small but significant stakeholder group who - generally speaking - have yet to embrace health solutions in western markets. In developing countries the picture is different with government, charities and operators working together to deliver health information and services.

Other stakeholders include the pharmaceutical industry, which could gain insight into the way their drugs are being used, improving the time and reducing the cost of enhanced versions. Healthcare professionals and organisations could become more effective and efficient as they would have a more accurate and time-effective method of helping people. mHealth application will become a significant niche for tablet vendors whose product represents a natural platform for managing patient records. Of importance is the ability to present information to patients in a form they will better understand.

Privacy was discussed at length. Solutions that centralised patient information in a secure environment, only using the mobile network and device for data capture and limited feedback using secure connections, represented little threat. Of more concern was the use of mobile devices to gain access to and edit detailed information about an individual, either directly or indirectly.

Coming back to our original question it seems the value of mHealth will be improved quality of life for people... and animals. However the relatively small role mobile plays in the end-to-end proposition could result in an overly inflated view of the mobile industry's role. Mobile operators enable bits of data to be moved from A to B, facilitating a dialogue between people or machines that otherwise could not happen. Without mobile operators this cannot happen. However the people that need to make health care solutions work are medical professionals. Mobile network operators would be well advised to listen to and help them rather than try and second-guess what they need.


Unsurprisingly, Mobile Monday London runs events on Monday evenings in the London area. The events they arrange are a great way to find out about an increasingly wide range of mobile-related subjects and, just as importantly, meet some very interesting people. Find out more at on the Mobile Monday London blog. And there'll be an audio report from the mHealth event in next week's podcast at TheFonecast.com.

Print
Author: The Fonecast
0 Comments
Rate this article:
No rating

Leave a comment

This form collects your name, email, IP address and content so that we can keep track of the comments placed on the website. For more info check our Privacy Policy and Terms Of Use where you will get more info on where, how and why we store your data.
Add comment

Recent Podcasts

From higher licence fees to lower roaming charges... and much more mobile industry news

Podcast - 16th October 2013

Product news in today's podcast includes Samsung's curved-screen smartphone, an HTC phablet and an update for Windows Phone 8.

We're also talking about malware, roaming charges, Ofcom's licence fees, a drop in mobile revenue, BT's MVNO and a project that sounds... well... silly.

Author: The Fonecast
0 Comments
Article rating: No rating

The ups and downs of the mobile telecoms industry

Podcast - 9th October 2013

In today's podcast: Samsung's profit, UK mobile ad spending and Vertu's smartphone range are all increasing.

Meanwhile HTC's profit and the proportion of children with mobile phones are both going down. Discover the background to these news stories - and plenty more - in our regular weekly broadcast.

Author: The Fonecast
0 Comments
Article rating: No rating

Accidental app purchases, increasing in-train coverage, Amazon announcements and much more

Podcast - 2nd October 2013

Today's podcast starts with a gentle warning to app developers from the Office of Fair Trading.

We then move on to Amazon's new tablets, HTC's sale of its Beats Electronics stake, Twitter's emergency alerts, UK government plans to improve mobile broadband on trains, customer complaints and the growth in adult content for mobile devices.

Author: The Fonecast
0 Comments
Article rating: No rating

The future of ring-back tones: we talk to Florent Stroppa of OnMobile

Podcast - 27th September 2013

Ring-back tones offers consumers yet another way to customise their mobile phone service. Yet despite this - and the revenue opportunities that can be generated - many network operators don't provide ring-back tones.

In today's special feature we talk to Florent Stroppa of OnMobile to discover why the UK doesn't really seem to be bothered about ring-back tones... and whether the next-generation of interactive ring-back services could change this.

Author: The Fonecast
0 Comments
Article rating: No rating

Two tablets for Microsoft, one tablet for Tesco... and a headache for BlackBerry

Podcast - 25th September 2013

There are big changes on the horizon at BlackBerry. We talk about the company's potential future and also look at the recent tablet announcements from Microsoft and Tesco... plus the rest of the week's mobile news.

There's also a special report from IAB2013 about the sometimes awkward relationship between mobile devices and the television industry.

Author: The Fonecast
0 Comments
Article rating: No rating
RSS
First1213141517192021Last

Follow thefonecast.com

Twitter @TheFonecast RSS podcast feed
Find us on Facebook Subscribe free via iTunes

Archive Calendar

«November 2024»
MonTueWedThuFriSatSun
28293031123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
2526272829301
2345678

Archive

Terms Of Use | Privacy Statement