Modern healthcare technologies have evolved rapidly in the past few decades. As we know, telehealth and remote patient monitoring (RPM) has gained a strong foothold. Another term that has been shaping health technologies is mHealth. mHealth or mobile health refers to the public health practices supported by mobile devices.
As a subset of eHealth, mHealth uses mobile technology to achieve improved health goals. mHealth covers all health applications supported by mobile devices such as mobile phones, personal digital assistants, patient monitoring devices, and other wireless devices. mHealth has been widely used in developed countries. In recent years, its applicability is gradually extending to developing countries. Greater access to larger segments of the population and improved quality of healthcare are some of the biggest appeals of mHealth.
But what exactly sets it apart from telehealth is its concept of mobile self-care. This article will delve further into this aspect and cover the pros and cons and the global scenario of mHealth. So, without further ado, let’s jump into the sections.
What is the use of mHealth?
mHealth apps are designed primarily to support diagnosis, advance disease-related education, and hasten the physician’s decision–making for treatments.
In addition to this, it also improves accountability in healthcare. It enhances the continuum of care by connecting interdisciplinary team members.
Using mobile phone technology in healthcare has led to a dramatic increase in efficiency and convenience of data collection, transfer, storage, and management as opposed to paper-based systems.
Broadly put, the medical uses of mHealth are broadly divided into five segments as follows:
- Education and Awareness
- Helpline
- Diagnostic and treatment support
- Communication and training for healthcare workers
- Disease surveillance and epidemic outbreak training
- Treatment support and medication compliance
Education and Awareness
These programs focus on spreading mass information from the source to the recipient through messages (SMS). Besides sharing knowledge, this service is also used to offer detailed information about the treatment, testing methods, availability of health services near the patient, and disease management. In terms of education, mHealth has opened newer avenues to disburse public health information to far-fetching areas such as rural areas.
Helpline – Helplines are unique to each country and district. These are specific phone numbers that can range from as short as three digits to as long as ten digits. Anyone in the area can call this number to seek medical services. Phone consultations, counseling, service complaints, and other information can be gathered by the public using helplines. Furthermore, they are also widely employed to get information on drugs, equipment, and easily accessible mobile health clinics.
Diagnostic and treatment support
These offer healthcare workers advice about diagnosis and treatment in remote areas. Step-by-step medical tree systems is a phone application that healthcare workers use in rural areas. Other support systems, like telemedicine, offer novel options for patients to treat their illnesses. In telemedicine, patients can photograph their wounds and send them for diagnosis and treatment to physicians miles away. These projects aim to mitigate the cost of treatment and traveling time of patients residing in rural areas.
Communication and training for healthcare workers – Connecting healthcare workers to their colleagues, medical institutions, ministries of health, and other houses of medical information is also done via mHealth. Mobile instant messaging and other applications have helped to organize people and offer target in-person training with relative ease. These have benefited medical professionals by teaching them higher levels of critical knowledge.
Disease surveillance and epidemic outbreak tracking – These projects collect and transmit data quickly, cheaply, and efficiently. The data corresponding to the location and levels of specific diseases like HIV/AIDS, Avian flu, etc., are regularly monitored and recorded. Any abnormal changes in these are immediately reported to the medical systems to identify any outbreaks at the earliest. Through these, it becomes easier to pinpoint the areas with the greatest need for medical services to curb the epidemic.
Treatment support and medication compliance – Remote monitoring allows physicians’ greater involvement in the continued care of patients. This helps doctors to track patients and monitor medication regimen adherence and follow-up schedule. It is used explicitly in medication adherence for HIV/AIDS, cardiovascular disease, chronic lung disease, diabetes, and antenatal mental health, among others. Utilizing dynamically tailored, SMS-based interventions to provide ongoing behavioral reinforcement for people living with HIV is also feasible using mHealth.
How is it different than telehealth?
mHealth is a user-directed health technology that falls into the health and wellness, sports, and fitness categories. It is more akin to a smartphone app that enables us to capture our health data without the assistance of a clinician for interpretation.
Unlike telehealth, which refers to all instances of healthcare via modern technology, mHealth is more focused on patient self-interaction.
Telehealth also emphasizes non-clinical services like administrative meetings and digital health promotion. mHealth, in contrast, facilitates data collection and delivering healthcare information to researchers and doctors.
mHealth establishes a seamless, continuous flow of information between physicians and patients accurately and cost-effectively.
In a similar line, telehealth operates to offer patients good quality care from the comforts of their homes. It has taken root in most developed and developing countries and has become an essential component of the healthcare system.
While mHealth is still in its early stages, telehealth has spread its wings and is fully operational across borders. Although both terms have subtle differences, the core lies in promoting self-care in mHealth as opposed to telehealth.
However, in conclusion, it is imperative to highlight that mHealth is a subsegment of telehealth and goes hand in hand with the latter.
What are the pros and cons?
mHealth has immense potential to improve the delivery of medical services, but not without shortcomings.
The advantage of mHealth are –
- Availability of multiple mHealth app options to choose from.
- Fewer visits to clinics for minor illnesses.
- Increased accessibility of healthcare services to many people.
- Offers healthcare providers better control over the patient’s information.
- Mobile devices reduce the burden on doctors and improve diagnostic accuracy by providing accurate patient history.
- Provide real-time health information such as pulse rate, heartbeat, oxygen levels, and stress levels.
- Better patient care for people residing in rural areas.
The cons of mHealth are –
- The presence of hundreds of apps only guarantees quality care with proper guidance. Lack of practical advice from physicians makes consumers need help finding the best app to monitor their condition.
- Lack of proper regulation as most companies needs to conduct studies to validate the usefulness of their app.
- Security risks limit the usage of smartphones in managing data in hospitals as this could lead to irreparable damages in case of any leakages.
- We need to catch up to the privacy policies of some mHealth apps compared to others.
Which are the most common platforms?
- mHealth is accessible through mobile devices like smartphones, tablets, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and wearable devices.
- The most popular mHealth solutions are Apple Heart Study, Fitbit, GoogleFit, and Samsung Health.
- These are some of the mobile applications that are highly valuable to consumers apart from SMS services.
What are the challenges of mhealth?
- Most doctors doubt the accuracy of the data recorded by mHealth apps. The FDA’s lack of approval for using these devices to monitor data accurately is one of the main reasons behind this.
- The need for more research on how the data from mHealth apps correspond to the patient’s outcomes poses a challenge to both doctors and patients.
- The global launch of a mHealth app often faces several compliance and regulation issues. This is mainly because each country has rules that must be adhered to, and following these compliances is challenging for entrepreneurs or healthcare organizations.
- The increased number of devices through which patients interact with doctors is a big problem for interoperability. This makes it difficult to ensure complete security across platforms while transferring information.
- Inadequate implementation of the security-first model by most of the apps available in the market is one of the biggest challenges that need to be addressed immediately to secure the information circulated in these apps. While measures are being taken to resolve it, these still demand further scrutiny to allow for their widespread use by all.
Global mhealth scenario
- The global mHealth market size has drastically increased in the past years. While the market size was valued at USD 50.7 billion in 2021, it is expected to record a compound annual growth rate of 11% from 2022 to 2030.
- This increased receptivity by consumers is attributed to the shift in the trend toward patient-centric and preventive approaches. The growing investments in digital health post-COVID-19 pandemic have also fueled this change. 2
- Suitable government strategies and increasing collaboration of the manufacturers with several healthcare institutions are other factors that have led to the optimistic situation of mHealth globally.
mhealth scenario in India
India’s healthcare app market is expected to reach a value of ₹337.89 billion (4 billion USD) by 2026. By 2025, 70 million households will have adopted ePharmacy technology alone.
Times of India (1)
According to Google Trends data, India ranks among the top five countries for search terms like ‘mobile health’ and ‘mHealth.’ This confirms the interest of the Indian population in mHealth.
While mHealth does have the potential to yield positive outcomes in India, its impact in the country is quite limited, owing to specific barriers.
The key factors impeding its large-scale applicability in India are the massive volume of apps that may come from dubious origins, poor network connectivity across the country, and physicians’ unwillingness to work with mHealth.
To resolve this, the government has also begun to promote several mHealth initiatives like National Health Portal, Vaccine Tracker app, India Fights Dengue app, etc. Albeit slow, it is evident that mHealth will become a mainstream practice in India in the coming years, with the young generation leading this change at the forefront.
Popular mHealth Apps
- Medication Management Apps
- Personal Health Record Apps
- Women’s Health Apps
- Other Healthcare Apps
- Healthcare Apps
- Diabetes Management Apps
- Cancer Management Apps
- Chronic Care Management Apps
- Blood Pressure & ECG Monitoring Apps
- Other Chronic Care Management Apps
- General Health & Fitness Apps