Hello and GREETINGS my fellow blog readers. As I promised in my last entry, today’s topic will be about mHealth. So, before we start digging further about mHealth and its usage in this modern era, let me answer the most basic question of all, What is mhealth?
mHealth or Mobile health information technology (mHealth) typically refers to portable devices with the capability to create, store, retrieve and transmit data in real time to improve patient safety and the quality of care. The flow of mobile health information is characterized by portable hardware coupled with software applications and patient data that travels across wireless networks. Data transmission is realized by technologies common in everyday life, including Bluetooth, cell phone, infra-red, WiFi, and wired technologies, all of which operate as part of a network. mHealth deployment is diverse. A clinician can use a mobile device to access a patient’s electronic health record (EHR), write and transmit prescriptions to a pharmacy, interact with patient treatment plans, communicate public health data, order diagnostic tests, review labs, or access medical references.
Mobile electronic health tools such as cell phones and telemedicine technologies are rapidly transforming the face and context of health service delivery around the world. At the same time, telemedicine’s role in clinical care, education, research and training in the health sector continues to grow from continent to continent. Mobile phone use, in particular, is exploding across the developing world, offering the opportunity to leapfrog other applications and services on both the health and technology fronts. As United Nations Foundation President Timothy E. Wirth emphasizes, the power of these technologies to improve health and the human condition cannot be underestimated: “Modern telecommunications, and the creative use of it, has the power to change lives and help solve some of the world’s biggest challenges.”
Telecommunications growth in developing countries over the past five years has been tremendous. In 1998, India and China had less than 1 million and 25 million mobile subscribers, respectively. By early 2008, both countries were adding 8 to10 million subscribers per month. This outpaces the United States, where growth is around 1.6 million subscribers per month, and Japan, where the corresponding figure is less than 1 million. In fact, the majority of mobile-subscriber growth over the next 10 years will come from the developing world. One of the most important areas that mobile technologies are primed to affect in both developing and developed countries is health care. Mobile technologies do two things well: compress time and distance. Thus, they connect, enable, and empower participants in the health care ecosystem to reduce costs and errors while increasing productivity, access, and efficiency.
Here in Indonesia, mHealth has been practiced and was used in Bandung. It is run by the Institute Teknologi Bandung, the Health and Medical Bureau, district authorities, three hospitals and 71 community health centers. The system utilized in this project employs existing Internet communication equipment and has been operating with the primary objectives of telediagnosis, remote consultation and the collection and recording of patient information. Medical instruments are installed and used depending on the differing needs of various locations and situations. In addition, the patient information system records the name of the disease and the findings of the physician, the diagnostic tests used to measure the grade of illness, the results of these tests and the type and method of treatment.
This ongoing pilot project has allowed people in rural areas and other locales far from hospitals to receive periodic medical examinations using cellular phones. Furthermore, the staff of small hospitals can now receive critical information formerly available only in larger medical settings, such as specialists’ diagnoses of rare diseases or advice about the treatment of advanced illnesses.
I hope a bit of this information will help you guys out there to have a bit of understanding regarding this matter.
Thank you.
No comments:
Post a Comment