mHealth can reduce global maternal and perinatal mortality by 30%

Wide adoption of mobile health (mHealth) solutions worldwide can lead to a decrease of 30 percent in the number of maternal and perinatal mortality, according to a new study conducted by The Boston Consulting Group and Telenor Group.

Source: Telenor

The study, entitled "Socio-Economic Impact of mHealth", indicates also that mHealth solutions for elderly care can reduce costs by some 25% and that expenditures related to data collection can be reduced by 24%.

The authors said that mHealth is expected to benefit from the explosive growth in global mobile phone penetration. They added that the necessary infrastructure already exists as the number of mobile subscriptions is expected to reach 7.4 billion by 2015.

According to the study, the existing mHealth technology richness and network capacity is sufficient, both on simple feature phones and on smartphones.

“The technological development and successful pilots around the world demonstrate that the time for mHealth has come," said Knut Haanæs, Global Leader, Sustainability Practice, The Boston Consulting Group. "Accelerating adoption will require orchestrating multiple stakeholders, including the alignment of incentives for healthcare professionals to adopt mHealth.”

The researchers concluded that mobile health technology can offer different countries sizeable benefits, lead to economic growth and promise a better life for individuals. They noted that currently, healthcare systems are overburdened, costly and incapable of meeting the needs of a growing population.