MHealth

Abstract

Mobile Healthcare, or mHealth, involves the use of mobile devices in healthcare. It is considered a revolutionary approach to delivering health care services such as diagnosis and treatment, research, and patient monitoring. Much of its revolutionary reach is due to the widespread adoption of mobile devices such as mobile smart phones and tablets such as the Apple Ipad. It is estimated that there are over five billion mobile devices in use throughout the world. In terms of demographics, in the United States, it is estimated that five out of seven Medicaid patients carry a mobile smart phone. One result of this mobile reach is the ability to provide healthcare services to people nonambulatory and isolated in their homes, and in underdeveloped and emerging countries, in ways that were previously cost prohibitive. mHealth is also seen as a way to emphasize prevention through mobile monitoring devices and thereby reduce the overall cost of healthcare. mHealth is viewed as changing the healthcare landscape by changing the relationship between the patient, healthcare provider, and between healthcare providers. “A new generation of eHealth products and services, based on wireless and mobile technology, is putting diagnosis and treatment management into the hands of the patient” (The Mobile Health Crowd, 2010). There is clearly a growing interest in, and emphasis on, mobile healthcare applications in the world today by vendors, physicians and patients. It is predicted that the mobile health application market alone will be worth over $84 million, and that by the year 2015, more than 500 million people will be actively using mobile health care applications (Merrill, 2011; Merrill, 2011b).