ICTpost mHealth Bureau
Effectively introducing the concept of secured mobile messaging is looked upon to provide the same benefits of standard two-way communication via SMS, while maintaining a secured connection at all times
Healthcare, like other industries, is getting personal. mHealth is offering personal toolkits for predictive, participatory and preventative care. The foundations of industrialisation of healthcare are already in place — electronic medical records, remote monitoring and communications. ‘Care anywhere’ is already emerging. The platform for mHealth is set.
Widespread adoption of mobile technology in healthcare, or mHealth, is now viewed as inevitable by more than half of the doctors and healthcare payers in developed and emerging markets around the world. For India that percentage goes up to 60%, ranking the country second among the developing economies in adopting mHealth. The pace of adoption will likely be led by emerging markets that rank highest among ten countries on a score of mHealth maturity, according to a global study by consultant PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Also, ageing populations and chronic illness are driving regulatory reform. Public sector healthcare is seeking better access and quality, and it’s looking to the private sector for innovation and efficiency.
As the global mHealth market enters the next phase, it is becoming more and more apparent that the workflows, processes and datasets that are unique to healthcare are essential in order to evolve wireless technology. Wireless and mobile delivery is not only redefining healthcare, but is streamlining its delivery and consumption within various settings – making it faster, more accurate and cost effective.
There are currently eight broad areas of the mHealth market, including general monitoring, personal emergency response systems (PERS), telemedicine, mobile medical equipment, RFID tracking, health and fitness software, mobile messaging and electronic medical records. Each area represents opportunities and challenges for the road ahead.
Mobile Medical Equipment
There are two primary areas where the advantages are multiplied. These include the use of devices in rural areas where the availability of things like advanced diagnostic equipment is relatively lower, in addition to use in hospitals where it’s viewed as a means to improve efficiency and overall care. Long-term, the market is poised for mobile medical devices to become core primary care physician (PCP) diagnostic tools in hospital settings much in the way every doctor has a stethoscope.
Looking forward, as wireless infrastructure via cellular data networks and Wi-Fi continue to evolve, these devices will see their usefulness and adoption multiplied significantly. The advantages in terms of efficiency, real-time data transfer and storage and the computerization/ automation of diagnostics will help the market for mobile medical devices explode.
RFID Tracking
RFID or “radio-frequency identification” is a technology that’s quickly affecting industries of all shapes and sizes. The technology effectively digitizes asset management and the organization of nearly anything for that matter. The technology uses communication via electromagnetic waves to exchange data between a terminal and an object – whether it’s a product, a physical file, device or even a person — for the purpose of identification and tracking.
RFID in terms of mHealth, also known as “real-time location systems (RTLS),” is still very much in its infancy. Adoption of RTLS by the global healthcare providers is expected to grow at a steady, but significant pace over the next five years, but according to recent research, global adoption of RFID is limited with only 5% of hospitals having adopted the technology for widespread usage. Many hospitals cite the lack of understanding of solutions as a key barrier, particularly of the benefits over and above current barcode-based non-real time inventory/sample tracking systems.
Overall adoption not only in the use of RFID, but in its use on a wide variety of medical-related items is expected to rise substantially as costs decline and understanding improves. As more and more mobile medical devices emerge and get smaller and smaller, RFID-based management will play a pivotal role in asset management and overall organization and infrastructure.
Mobile Messaging
SMS and mobile messaging is a primary driver of the mHealth segment much like it is in other areas of the mobile ecosystem. Its reach and inherent ubiquity provide a perfect starting off point to introduce mHealth services and applications to consumers in a way they’re already comfortable with. Introducing the technology in a medical capacity, however, presents numerous challenges and barriers in terms of security, privacy and compliance.
Effectively and efficiently introducing the concept of secured mobile messaging is looked upon to provide the same benefits of standard two-way communication via SMS, while maintaining a secured and compliant connection at all times.
The concept of secured mobile messaging is easier said than done, however, which is why most mHealth solutions that utilize mobile messaging focus on basic communication like appointment and prescription reminders via SMS. Finding a way to secure this communication opens up numerous additional possibilities. At present, a clinic can send an SMS notification to an opted-in user saying something like, “Your lab results are ready,” which provides a convenience for the consumer but still limits the advantages. Upon receiving the message, the consumer would still need to call or visit the clinic to receive the full results of their lab testing.
With secured mobile messaging, that same SMS could read: “Your lab results are ready, visit this secured link to see your results.” SMS can act as the gateway to a secured, direct connection to your healthcare provider to send and receive health information in real-time with little intervention on both the consumer and clinician side. Through the integration of secured mobile landing pages and SMS, numerous layers of security and privacy-consent can exist, which in turn satisfies many compliance, privacy and security concerns.