Mobile Health Expansion Driven by Advances in IT

Technologies such as electronic medical records (EMRs), remote monitoring, and communication platforms are industrializing the clinical diagnostics sector, thus promoting mobile health (mHealth). These are the latest findings of Frost & Sullivan (Mountain View, CA, USA), an international market research firm.

According to Frost & Sullivan, mHealth can make healthcare initiatives work faster and be more accessible in an improved, cost-effective manner by providing personalized disease management tools to better manage predicted symptoms, chronic illness, and episodic acute conditions. As more and more healthcare information technology (IT) and patient monitoring tools are integrated in these mHealth solutions, hospitals and other healthcare facilities will need to acquire a full-enterprise wireless solution to make effective use of connectivity tools and data transfer capabilities.

Additionally, the ubiquity of cellular phones and mobile-enabled monitoring technologies offers significant opportunities to the healthcare industry. Doctors are favoring mobile technology as it can help meet most of their needs, including monitoring patient compliance, assessing patient records, and communicating with their global counterparts. But while enhanced patient care is a major benefit prompting doctors to adopt mHealth for healthcare delivery, users tend to be reluctant to embrace this technology due to concerns about the security of patient information by programs using mHealth technologies; compromised message transmission and data storage security will make patients' vital statistics vulnerable to hacking threats.

In addition, regulatory agencies and medical establishments need to strike a balance between the risks and benefits of specific mHealth applications, distinguishing between applications that require strategies suited to an emerging market and those that have the potential to surpass other healthcare systems. This can be achieved through collaborations between regulators and technology operators. Extensive research is being done to understand core mobile network technologies that integrate monitoring capabilities with mobile platforms.

“Data generated by mHealth applications find maximum potential in monitoring and optimizing the healthcare delivery chain,” said Prasanna Vadhana Kannan, a technical insights industry analyst at Frost & Sullivan. “Technology developers should focus on improving their understanding of this pattern so they can offer a compelling argument for the adoption of this technology.”

Within the next three to four years, Frost & Sullivan expects developers will gain a superior understanding of the nature of security breach concerns and take necessary precautions.

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