MHealth: Don’t Forget All the Stakeholders in the Business Case

mHealth affords the ability to link patient-generated data with electronic health records that incorporate various forms of clinical decision support systems. The evolution of the mHealth market indicates that citizens are interested in using mobile tools to manage their health, and the growing emphasis on patient engagement in their care makes mHealth attractive to healthcare systems. In addition to patients, care providers, and health researchers, other stakeholders such as health plans, government payors, pharmaceutical and device manufacturers, and regulators have an interest in – and potentially significant influence over – the development and maturation of the mHealth market. This panel will explore mHealth stakeholder interests, including: • Stakeholders’ priorities and why are they important • How healthcare delivery may be affected as mHealth adoption grows • How healthcare systems around the globe may incentivize the appropriate use of mHealth Carolyn Petersen will explore the intersection of citizen interest, patient advocacy, and healthcare system facilitation of patient-centered care supported by mHealth. Paul DeMuro will consider a number of legal and business issues in this context including those arising as a result of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). The discussion will address the many quality, benefit, and cost effects on various stakeholders. Samantha Adams will look at emerging trends in Europe, including concrete developments in countries such as the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, as well as policy changes at the European level. She will use these insights to outline a research agenda for the coming year: what is currently being done and what needs to be done? Samantha Adams, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Patient-centered e-Health at the Tilburg Institute of Law, Technology and Society (TILT) of Tilburg University in Tilburg, the Netherlands. Her research line focuses on personalized web-based health information and includes extensive research on the reliability of health websites and use of social media in healthcare. In collaboration with the Rotterdam Global Health Initiative, she recently began researching the development of Serious Games for educating the health workforces of developing countries. She is a member of the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) and the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) and is a member of the AMIA Ethics Committee. Paul DeMuro, JD, CPA, MBA, is a health care and corporate law attorney with a master's degree in biomedical informatics. He has practiced extensively in the areas of accountable care organizations, clinical integration, regulatory compliance, e-health care and health care technology. He is a National Library of Medicine post-doctoral fellow and PhD student at Oregon Health & Science University focusing on international health care systems. Carolyn Petersen, MS, MBI, is senior editor of MayoClinic.org, Mayo Clinic’s consumer health information Web site and patient portal. She is a member of AMIA’s Ethics and Public Policy Committees, chair of AMIA’s Ethical, Legal and Social Issues Working Group, and a patient stakeholder reviewer for the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. []