Latest Podcast



Featured 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

Opinion Articles

How mobile phone retailers must embrace technology to diagnose phone faults

Amir Lehr of Cellebrite writes:

Mobile phone faults pose a daily problem for mobile phone retailers. According to mobile diagnostics expert Cellebrite, 60 per cent of cases are software-related issues with the smartphone, and can be resolved within minutes.

Author: The Fonecast
0 Comments
Article rating: No rating

Last week at The Fonecast: 12th May 2014

Feelin’ groufie

Mark Bridge writes:

Last week a major retailer with a significant online presence announced plans to release its own-brand smartphone by the end of the year. No, not Amazon. This news came from Tesco.

Author: The Fonecast
0 Comments
Article rating: No rating

Smartphone innovation is slowing down, as Samsung struggles to differentiate

Lawrence Lundy of Frost & Sullivan writes:

While the Galaxy S5 is an evolutionary product, there is not enough in there to make people upgrade from the 4. It doesn't push the envelope in any real way; we are in a sort of stasis now when it comes to smartphone innovation.

Author: The Fonecast
0 Comments
Article rating: No rating

Welcome to the digitised city

M2M technology transforms parking in Pisa

Jürgen Hase of Deutsche Telekom writes:

The Smart City is on its way. All over the world more and more cities are connecting all areas of their infrastructure. Pisa in Tuscany, for example, aims to improve its traffic management with a machine-to-machine (M2M) solution and a Big Data service provided by Deutsche Telekom.

Author: The Fonecast
0 Comments
Article rating: No rating

Last week at The Fonecast: 31st March 2014

HTC goes One better

Mark Bridge writes:

“Hey, everybody, we’re releasing a new flagship smartphone that carries all the hopes of the company with it. If this sells well, we could be saved. If not, it could be disaster.”

“Great. What shall we call our new phone?”

“Oh, we’ll give it the same name as the previous model. That’ll be fine.”

Author: The Fonecast
0 Comments
Article rating: No rating
RSS
123468910Last

Recent Podcasts

Reviewing our 2015 mobile industry predictions... and looking forward to 2016

Podcast - 15th January 2016

Iain Graham, James Rosewell and Mark Bridge return to review their mobile industry predictions from last year. Which mergers, partnerships and developments did they forecast correctly... and which didn’t work out as planned?

Later in the programme, the team anticipates some of the topics that will be hitting the headlines during 2016.

Author: The Fonecast
0 Comments
Article rating: No rating

Podcast from Mobile World Congress 2015

Podcast - 6th March 2015

Mark Bridge learns about the mobile technology trends at Mobile World Congress 2015 by chatting to James Rosewell of 51Degrees, Dr Kevin Curran from the IEEE and Chris Millington of Doro.

They talk about wearable devices, wireless charging, mobile operating systems and much more... including some of their favourite products from the exhibition.

Author: The Fonecast
0 Comments
Article rating: No rating

Looking back at February: from security scares to multiple MVNOs

Podcast - 27th February 2015

We're taking a look back at the biggest mobile industry news stories from February 2015, including allegations that the UK's security service tried to breach SIM card security by hacking into one of the world's biggest SIM producers.

We also talk about the planned BT and EE merger, the creation of two new UK virtual networks, some acquisitions in the mobile payment arena and a new Ubuntu smartphone.

Author: The Fonecast
0 Comments
Article rating: No rating

Interview with Chris Millington of Doro about mobile retailing, wearables and technology for older consumers

Podcast - 24th February 2015

In today's programme Mark Bridge talks to Chris Millington, who's Managing Director for Doro UK and Ireland.

They discuss the state of mobile retailing in the UK, the future of wearable devices and - as you might expect - smartphones for seniors.

Author: The Fonecast
0 Comments
Article rating: No rating

A month of mobile: O2 counts on 3, Microsoft counts to 10 and Apple counts its profits

Podcast - 30th January 2015

We're back with a month of mobile industry news, including takeover talks and takeover rumours. O2 and Three are said to be discussing a merger... but is there any truth in the suggestions that BlackBerry could be up for grabs?

We also discuss Apple's record-breaking quarterly figures, the highlights of CES and the launch of Microsoft Windows 10, as well as saying farewell to the current version of Google Glass.

Author: The Fonecast
0 Comments
Article rating: No rating
RSS
123468910Last

Follow thefonecast.com

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

Archive Calendar

«March 2024»
MonTueWedThuFriSatSun
26272829123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031
1234567

Archive

Terms Of Use | Privacy Statement