The Future Is Mobile
Andi Tiara S.Adam, Andi Yaumil Chaeriyah, AndiAsyuraAlikha
Faculty of Medicine, Hasanuddin University Makassar, Indonesia
Abstract
When people talk about the future of healthcare, most people will immediately picture
super robots posing as surgical machines or advanced diagnostic tools that only exist in
big hospitals. But to us who live in developing countries, our biggest dream is to have
healthcare that can be accessed by anyone even in the most rural areas. What we fail to
notice is that the answer is already here. The smartphone! Most people consider their
smartphone as the most important piece of technology that they own. It can be seen
through the number of smartphone users that keep onskyrocketing. Viewing the statistics,
1.91 billion people worldwide, including 55.4 million of Indonesia's population, are
smartphone users. This shows that the smartphone has shifted from being a luxury item,
to becoming a basic need and even a form of addiction for some people that compulsively
check their phone every once a while. This form of addiction sends a negative message to
the society that your smartphone is something that must be avoided, when the whole idea
is notabout the choice between using it ornot, rather the choice to use it right. The way to
use it right is by imbuing it with a positive matter like a healthcare application. There are
approximately 97.000 mobile health applications that can help you reduce your risk of
developing any noncommunicable disease by 80% and also help you fight through one.
These applications can do the simplest actions like movement and activity tracking, to the
more sophisticated actions like blood pressure and glucose monitoring, and
noncommunicable disease management. In conclusion, we would like to promote the
smartphone as the best solution for health issues, as it brings healthcare directly to usand
it leads usto ourgoal, healthcare for all.
Source:
1. "Smartphone Users and Penetration Worldwide".Emarketer, December 2014.
2. "Internet, Smartphone, and Social Media Usage Statistics".Rapidvalue, December
2014.