93 countries worldwide already offer mHealth services

93 countries around the world are offering at least one type of mHealth service, according to a new report published by the World Health Organization (WHO). 

The four most frequently reported mHealth initiatives used by member states are: 

• Health call centers (59%)
• Emergency toll-free telephone services (55%)
• Managing emergencies and disasters (54%)
• Mobile telemedicine (49%)

The report - titled "mHealth: new horizons for health through mobile technologies" - indicates that the use of mobile and wireless technologies to support the achievement of health objectives (mHealth) has the potential to transform the face of health service delivery across the globe.

The authors note that change is driven by a powerful combination of factors including: rapid advances in mobile technologies and applications, a rise in new opportunities for the integration of mobile health into existing eHealth services, and the continued growth in coverage of mobile cellular networks. 

The WHO observes that health systems worldwide are under increasing pressure to perform under multiple health challenges, chronic staff shortages, and limited budgets, all of which makes choosing interventions difficult. 

The authors note that mHealth needs to adopt globally accepted standards and interoperable technologies, ideally using open architecture.

"Communication technologies would enhance efficiency and reduce cost," the WHO said. "To accomplish this, countries will need to collaborate in developing global best practices so that data can move more effectively between systems and applications. Moving towards a more strategic approach to planning, development, and evaluation of mHealth activities will greatly enhance the impact of mHealth." 

The Evolution of Wearable Mobile-Health Applications

Wearable technologies offer exciting opportunities for personal mobile health applications development.

Wearable systems, such as Aerotel's GeoSkeeper, can be implemented in areas of chronic disease management and elderly care. They promise to provide seamless access to health professionals from anywhere and at anytime.

GeoSkeeper

The development of wearable mobile health applications is driven by the promise to bring healthcare to the people instead of bringing people to healthcare. By doing that, healthcare can become more personal and accessible to everyone and reduce costs for health care providers and insurers. 

Wearable systems impose significant challenges to developers, in areas such as development of smart fabrics, miniaturization, battery management, cost-reduction and user interfaces.

Ofer Atzmon, Vice President of Business Development and Marketing at Aerotel Medical Systems, will present the past and present of wearable mobile health systems developments at Mobile Health Expo in New York on Tuesday, June 21, 2011, at 14:30.

Mobile Health Expo is a special event focusing on the convergence of mobile technology and healthcare across the entire mobile health ecosystem, including mhealth, telemedicine, wireless and connected health.

This year event will focus on eight market drivers: ageing at home, disease management, health inclusion for developed and developing countries, provider education, patient education, healthcare gaming, mobile wallets and benefits.

Report: mHealth to transform global healthcare

Innovative mHealth (Mobile Health) applications have the potential to transform healthcare in both the developing and the developed world, according to a new in depth study published by the University of Cambridge and China Mobile.

Source: University of Cambridge

The 120-page report, titled Mobile Communications for Medical Care, focuses on the healthcare and health promotion applications. The authors, led by Professor Ian Leslie from the University of Cambridge’s Computer Laboratory and Simon Sherrington, General Manager at Innovation Observator, note that these applications have the greatest growth potential in major emerging economics.

Cambridge researches concluded that mHealth applications will develop most rapidly in countries where healthcare delivery and public services generally, are in transition. Rapid development will also be encouraged where the population has rising expectations for healthcare, and where those involved in healthcare delivery are willing and able to experiment with new models.


The authors note that mHealth applications have the following advantages:

• Contribute to bringing healthcare to unserved or underserved populations
• Increase the effectiveness and reducing the costs of healthcare delivery
• Improve the effectiveness of public health programs and research
• Prevent illness
• Manage and treat chronic diseases
• Keep people out of hospital

"In developed economies, mobile will be used to collect, store, analyze and upload a wide spectrum of personal and environmental data, from vital signs (heart rate, body temperature, etc.) to location, motion, mood, ambient air temperature and pollution levels, and adherence to medication regimes," the authors said. "This will benefit individuals and will also lead to better forms of illness prevention and treatment, and earlier prediction of epidemics".


The report also examines the implications of mHealth for the developing world. In low-income economies, mHealth can improve access to services in areas that are hard to reach through conventional means of health delivery; disseminate information on medical advances and public health to professionals and the public; facilitate data gathering from remote areas during disease outbreaks, enabling better research and response planning; help secure the supply chain for drugs; and increase the effectiveness of treatments by supporting adherence to medication regimes.

Segmentation of mHealth Opportunities 

The report also considers the role of mobile operators in mHealth innovation and, in particular, whether mobile operators should be the suppliers of mHealth applications or simply enablers. It illustrates that there are viable business models, and that mobile operators have a lot to gain from, and offer to, mHealth applications.

Related Articles:
Turning mHealth into be the next killer app requires different approach

Report: mHealth apps market to triple to 600 million by 2012

Implications of new FDA rule on mobile medical devices still unclear

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) long awaited rule regulating how hardware manufacturers can introduce new mobile medical devices for use by health care providers went into effect earlier this month.

It is yet to be seen what will be the impact of the new regulations on medical equipment developers and software vendors as it is too early to predict how it will influence the market.

The new Medical Device Data Systems (MDDS) rule now classifies most health-related IT devices as Class I or low-risk medical devices. The rule requires IT companies to register health care hardware and software that transfer, store, convert or display health care data.

"This rule is a common-sense regulatory approach that provides clarity and predictability for manufacturers of these data systems," Dr. Jeffrey Shuren, who heads the FDA center for review of medical devices M.D. said in a statement. 


"This shows our flexibility in applying regulations for medical device data systems that are not overly burdensome for manufacturers, but continue to assure that data stored, transferred or displayed on these systems remain reliable," said Shuren.

Aerotel to present wireless health care solutions at Med-e-Tel 2011

Aerotel Medical Systems will present its innovative wireless health care and telemedicine products at the Med-e-Tel 2011 Conference that will be held at 6-8 April 2011 in Luxembourg.

Ofer Atzmon, vice president for business development and marketing at Aerotel, will discuss  wireless health solutions for chronic care management. The presentation will be held during the tele-cardiology session, which will take place on Wednesday, April 6 in conference room 4 at 14:00-16:00. The presentation will be given again on Friday, April 8 in conference room 3 at 16:00-17:30.

The presentation will focus on wireless homecare hubs used for connecting multiple medical sensors in the home and will deal with the use of wireless technologies for the provision of healthcare services.

Among others the presentation will highlight: 

• Market drivers
• Need for chronic disease management
• Benefits of remote home monitoring
• Homecare evolution

Aerotel will also introduce at the event the Connect-Cell Wireless Homecare Hub, which shows the measurement of blood pressure by patients with remote web interface consultation. In addition, the company will showcase its personal GPS location and tracking system, GeoSkeeper, and the HeartView, a personal hand-held 12-lead ECG monitor.

Med-e-Tel is an official event of the International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth (ISfTeH) and the international federation of national associations, who represent their country’s Telemedicine and eHealth stakeholders.

Turning mHealth into be the next killer app requires different approach

The significant growth in demand for advanced portable devices and the increase in usage of mobile applications led to the publishing of optimistic forecasts by many analysts concerning the possibility of utilizing mobile health opportunities by Mobile Network Operators (MNO).

Source: Arthur D. Little

A new research by Arthur D. Little follows the general trend, while making several clear recommendations. The bottom line is that mHealth could be the next killer app in the mobile industry, but it requires a completely new market entry strategy.

“The MNO must assess its own capabilities, decide what role it will play and how it will contribute to the service, align the internal capabilities required for the selected business model, and then partner with other players to acquire key capabilities to effectively and efficiently bring patients into the ecosystem,” says Dr. Karim Taga, Director at Arthur D. Little’s Telecoms, Information, Media & Electronics Practice.

The new report, titled: Capturing Value in the mHealth Oasis: An Opportunity for Mobile Network Operators? recommend mobile operators to carefully examine the degree of development and specific characteristics of individual markets in order to launch the appropriate solutions.

It suggests that in developed markets, operators must focus on solutions that fit within the current health care industry structure. At the same time, in emerging markets, the 'Keep it simple' attitude should lead the penetration process. In those markets, mobile operators should focus on mHealth solutions, such as the delivery of medical information by SMS or MMS, medicine reminders, remote data collection, and medical help-lines, that can help improve patients’ access to basic medical care.

The authors note that mHealth has been hailed as the next major development for mobile networks operators, while warning that it might be "wishful thinking from a sector desperately seeking additional revenues to offset margin erosion."

The report concludes that if MNOs adhere to a few simple guidelines they can avoid major obstacles and increase their chances of success. If these guidelines are taken into account, Arthur D. Little believes that mHealth will surpass even the most optimistic industry predictions within the next five years and add significant value to the mobile industry.

We as Aerotel would recommend, in any case, adopting a careful approach which is based on building a strong partnership with other players, who are already active in the market and have compatible advantages. In our view, the natural partnership for MNO would be with health services providers and technology developers, with proven expertise in the eHealth market.

Telemedicine market to more than double by 2015

The global telemedicine market is expected to grow by more than 100 percent in the coming five years, according to a report published by BCC Research.

The report, titled "Telemedicine: Opportunities for Medical and Electronic Providers" predicts that the telemedicine market will be worth some $23 billion in 2015 compared to $9.8 billion in 2010. The company's analysts estimate that the market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 18.6 percent over the next 5 years.

The authors noted that the global telehospitals and clinics market accounted for 71% of the total Telemedicine market in 2009, and was worth $6.9 billion in 2010 compared to $5.6 billion in 2009. This sector is expected to continue and increase to $15 billion in 2015, at a compound annual growth rate of 16.8%.

The telehome market, which represented 28.5% of the market in 2009, is believed to capture nearly 35% by 2015. This sector is valued at nearly $2.9 billion in 2010 and is expected to increase at a 22.5% annual growth rate to $7.9 billion in 2015.

BCC said that there has been a global focus on the use of telemedicine as a tool to cut down healthcare costs and bring about mammoth savings.