The Journal of mHealth Vol 1 Issue 2 (Apr 2014) | Page 22

Putting the 'm' into Health: How Mobile Technology is Defining...
Continued from page 18

activity, such as patients working
together to walk the distance from
Paris to Rome, often a more rewarding achievement than simply setting a
personal goal of taking 10,000 steps
a day.
In the context of clinicians, it is
essential that mHealth solutions provide valuable information, in a format that enhances the HCPs experience without increasing workload.
Here the use of a single platform to
collate data from a variety of inputs
enables the use of algorithms to
generate effective dashboards and
reports to support patient review as
well as alerts should patients venture
outside of pre-determined limits,
using agreed pathways to contact the
patient and determine appropriate
interventions.
Having recognized the opportunity
to enhance the traditional role of
the pharmaceutical industry, AstraZeneca are pioneering the development of these ground-breaking
integrated health programs having
announced their strategic initiative
‘Intelligent Pharmaceuticals’, which
will be implemented across a number of key therapeutic areas globally.
The first program to be announced
publicly is ‘Me&MyCOPD’ which is
initially being rolled out in the UK to
support COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) patients.
‘Me&MyCOPD’ is an integrated
health solution designed to support
each individual patient towards better medication and lifestyle management, providing personalized selfmanagement tools for the patient
which responds to the individuals
needs in the right way, at the right
time. The program uses a mobile and
internet based platform to capture
information, manage medication and
support the patient’s existing COPD
care-plan, integrating HCPs into the
end-to-end process. Ultimately

20
April 2014

‘Me&MyCOPD’ empowers patients
to take control of their condition and
self-manage to improve their health
outcomes.

BRINGING PAYERS ON
BOARD
Return on Investment (RoI) is of
crucial importance to the payer and
will determine the future direction of
mHealth services. Historically telehealth programs were implemented
to monitor patients suffering from
chronic conditions remotely. Whilst
these programs have provided compelling evidence of the value of supporting patients in their own homes,
for example the UK Dept. of Health
Whole System Demonstrator*, the
investment required for equipment
purchase, installation and maintenance has been a barrier to entry.
Mobile health provides a more holistic patient-centered approach, linking solutions together to provide an
integrated picture, tailored to each
stakeholder, through the use of the
patient’s own devices, thus removing device management costs associated with telehealth programs. It is
this clear RoI with minimal upfront
investment that will drive healthcare
payers to adopt mHealth solutions
as part of their careplans in order to
create healthcare of the future.

DEFINING THE FUTURE
OF HEALTHCARE
The emerging market for mHealth
services holds within it the potential
to revolutionize how the world will
manage health and wellness in the
21st century. Patients need access to
information, they need to feel connected, to better understand their
condition, be empowered and ultimately to enjoy better health outcomes. Advances in mobile technology, and the growth of access to it
around the world, now enable the
development of programs to sup-

port patients using their own devices.
As a result, patients have access to
the information ^H