mHealth and new models of care
Tags: Mhealth, Healthcare Innovations, Healthcare

mHealth and new models of care

mHealth: transforming healthcare and driving business for pharmaceutical companies

Similar to other industries, consumers are driving much of the demand for mHealth technologies and applications. The Internet is being used as a tool for self-diagnosis and a source of convenience for consumers: patients and health consumers are going online to access information and related resources to support an understanding of their health condition or illness.

Mobile apps are enhancing overall consumer engagement in health care by increasing the flow of information; lowering costs through better decision-making, fewer in-person visits, and greater adherence to treatment plans; and improving satisfaction with the service experience.

In time, I believe that every health service enterprise, its underlying processes and supply chain will be digital and the majority of them will support mobile interfaces. As such, I believe that mobile will not be viewed as a separate solution; rather it will be seen as simply another channel that extends the reach of clinical and administrative systems. I also believe that mobile is poised to become the preferred channel for patients and clinicians given its on-the-go and always connected convenience, and the variety of platforms and consumer-friendly device form factors that are available.

In the future, it is conceivable that clinicians will use their mobile devices and workstations to electronically prescribe apps from structured libraries for their patients to download onto their own mobile devices as part of the care plan. Apps will create digital links between patients, caregivers and their care team. Some will serve to stream data in real time to analytics engines that will support clinical and administrative decision making and drive continuous quality and safety improvements in health care delivery.

If you believe in the potential that digitally connected mobile devices will enable quality benefits to patients and providers, you must also acknowledge that a long road of transformation lies ahead of us.

The reality, today, is that the majority of doctors are not ready to introduce these types of solutions to their patients, or conversely, to integrate consumer devices and personal analytics into their care management systems. All health care leaders and clinicians can prepare and position their enterprise for the future by gathering information on the mobile needs of their clients while accumulating insights from the lessons learned by early adopters.

There has been growing interest in patient-centred care, patient self-management and patient engagement. mHealth technologies provide the tools for patients and their informal caregivers to collaborate more effectively with their care team. A recent study concluded that patients who used technologies, including mobile devices, to access health information, felt better prepared for clinical encounters and asked more questions that were relevant to their condition.

However, more than new mHealth technologies, new work processes are required to support the provision of health services to, and interactions with patients. This also affects the way in which clinicians interact with one another and their digital health ecosystem.

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