Mobile Technology In Healthcare Research Articles

MHealth for Midwives: A Call to Action

The use of mobile phones has grown exponentially in the last decade including in some of the most remote and low-resource regions of the world. With the geographic expansion of mobile phone use, information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) was born, and innovative uses for mobile technologies in various fields including health care have emerged. This use of mobile technology in health care is known as mHealth. mHealth interventions are being used internationally to improve maternal and child health. Be it the use of a mobile phone to call for emergency transport, remote consultation, or large-scale short message service (SMS)-based community education programs, mHealth is demonstrating its utility in reproductive health programs throughout the world. This article describes the evolution and challenges of mHealth, discusses the role of mHealth in achieving Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5, and addresses the potential impact of mHealth for midwives. mHealth represents a new area of global health that warrants the attention of midwifery advocates. Midwifery leadership in the field of mHealth at this early stage of its development will ensure future health programming that is relevant to the needs of women and the midwives who care for them.

Mobile Technology in Healthcare

Missed appointments lead to substantial cost for many health systems but particularly for the national health system (NHS) in England. The costs are due to direct costs involved in arranging the appointment and the opportunity cost of missed appointments [1]. MHealth is the use of mobile and wireless devices to improve health outcomes, health care services and health research [2]. In England, since 2003, a number of pilot trials, which use mobile phone short message service (SMS) to remind patients to attend NHS appointments, have been launched [1]. In health management systems, information has a special role in planning, evaluation, training, legal aspects and research [3]. In fact, the fist distinction between developed and developing countries, are the production, application and utilization of information [4-5].

A review on mHealth research in developing countries

Governments and development agencies are advocating mobile technology as a potential tool for developing and improving livelihoods, especially in developing countries where traditional technologies have failed to gain ground for wide ranging reasons. It is, therefore, understandable that the use of mobile technology in health care (mHealth) is growing in developing countries. Healthcare is one of the challenges facing developing countries, with the majority of the countries still lagging behind in most of the health related Millennium Development Goals (MDG) (Goals 4, 5 and 6). Due to the nascence of the domain, research in the domain is still in its infancy and, as such, there is little evidence to support the claims about the impact of the technology. The aim of this paper is to analyse the progress of mHealth as well as the progress of the research in the domain in developing countries. Data for the study are mHealth papers presented at the Third Mobile for Development (M4D) Conference which took place in India between 28th and 29th February 2012. The review notes the following about research in mHealth in developing countries: (i) Most interventions are patient-facing; this provides opportunities for using mHealth to empower the public; (ii) The interventions use a growing range of technological solutions; (iii) Most research still focuses on pilot projects as opposed to scaled-up projects and (iv) Research in the domain still lacks rigour.

A Usability Study of Patients Setting Up a Cardiac Event Loop Recorder and BlackBerry Gateway for Remote Monitoring at Home

This article reports on a usability study of remote noninvasive cardiac testing in homes. We studied the Vitaphone 3100BT (Bluetooth®) event loop recorder (Vitaphone GmbH, Mannheim, Germany) and paired BlackBerry® Curve™ 8520 smartphone (Research In Motion, Ltd., Waterloo, ON, Canada). This application requires independent device set-up by patients in their own homes following receipt by mail out of the kit (instructions plus the event loop recorder and smartphone). The case studies of five participants, each with varying experience with technology, were documented as they interacted with the devices. Participants were videotaped following written instructions as they performed a "think aloud" procedure while completing 20 device set-up tasks. Interviews provided insight into how the independent device set-up and processes could be improved. This study concluded that gender, age, and familiarity with technology seemed to influence the participants' abilities to successfully set up these devices and that sending the kit by mail appeared to be an acceptable strategy to provide remote noninvasive cardiac diagnostic services. This study provides a foundation for future research assessing usability of mobile healthcare technology.

The Trend of Mobile Healthcare Technology

The Trend of Mobile Healthcare Technology

Public views of mobile medical devices and services: A US national survey of consumer sentiments towards RFID healthcare technology

A 2007 national public opinion survey of 1404 Americans revealed variations in sentiments concerning the desirability of several mobile healthcare technologies based on RFID. The survey appears to be the first reasonably national public opinion survey of US adults concerning their attitudes towards mobile healthcare technology. The survey revealed high levels of interest in emergency intervention services, but much less so in health information and monitoring services. Interest in RFID personal medical technology was positively associated with high levels of trust in others and social support. At the same time, a small minority were negatively disposed towards such applications. In those cases, the negative sentiment appears heightened when the mobile healthcare application is offered in a modality attached to the body as opposed to a somewhat more physically remote option, i.e., attached to one's cell phone.