The 10 Most Trusted Healthcare IT Security Solution Providers 2018 Final file Healthcare IT optimize | Page 26

The Advantages
mhealth provides various versatile advantages across all the
areas of the healthcare industry. It not only helps the
disease-affected citizens but also helps in monitoring
potential patients that are at risk. Furthermore, it has
incredible potential in the biometric hardware and real-time
analytics.
Majority of doctors believe that the applications developed
in the name of health are actually beneficial. Around ninety-
three percent of doctors suggest that the mobile healthcare
applications help in improving the overall health.
Some of the most common advantages of mhealth devices
are:
Medication reminder- Using a reminder, the public can set
timers for their medications, exercise, and many more such
activities.
Fitness trackers- People can monitor their fitness and
burned calories.
Calories counter- People can monitor how much calories
they are taking-in and can control it.
Mobile emergency health communication- Citizens can
contact their loved ones in any kind of emergencies. If the
device has autonomous capabilities, it can automatically
contact the concerned authorities.
Heart and Vital monitoring- Application rendered with the
vital monitoring abilities can be very useful. Citizens can
use these while exercising or in the case of emergency for
example, patients’ vitals’ can be monitored in an
ambulance.
As mhealth is becoming widely known, healthcare
providers are embracing the mobile communications, thus
improving the relationships with the patients.
the change. They are unwilling to learn new skills or new
technology. They also believe that it impedes their
workflow.
In terms of workflow, the structure of evaluation presents a
major challenge for the healthcare sector. There should be
resolute standards for the evaluation. With the constant
change of technology, infrastructure, and innovative
research methods, there is a specific need to evaluate the
process and consequences of the action taken in the mhealth
process implementation. Consequently, a balance is
required to be maintained in the mhealth applications and
its execution. Healthcare providers must also take care of
the data overloading. As the data is collected in the real-
time and recorded, there must be a proper assessment of the
collected data where non-important data is filtered out.
Industry Trends
Being the fastest growing trend, the mobile platform is used
by more than five billion people in the world. With the
increase of smartphones and wireless network technologies,
the digital healthcare systems have new possibilities
alongside new challenges to provide high quality,
efficiency, accessibility, and lower cost to the healthcare
services. Various reports suggest that the consumers are
expecting mhealth to change the overall healthcare
experience with the way the digital information is obtained.
The impact of mHealth is seen in the relationship and
overall communication between a patient and the physician.
Studies have shown that the health monitoring devices and
cellular connectivity has reached more than seven million
people. The combined market of the mobile health
applications, health, and wireless apps, is expected to grow
at a significant amount. In some countries, there are apps
that are monitoring the patient's asthma right from their
mobile phones. It is done using the microphone of the
phone just like a spirometer. Other countries are using a
wireless shoe insole, used to monitor the blood pressure in
the heel. This digital shoe alerts the diabetic patients, when
there is too much weight on feet, which can help in the
elimination of foot ulcers.
Constraints
Major hurdles in the mhealth are the guidelines regarding
the privacy and security of the health data collection on
mobile technologies and identifying new opportunities to
enhance the delivery of mhealth services. According to the
surveys, resistance is seen from staff and physicians due to
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mhealth has enormous potential and is growing rapidly
along with changing technology. Various international
organization and global experts are researching
continuously to foster the best use of current promising
technology to improve the global health.