Mobile Health Components & Features
Mobile health is defined as medical and public health practice supported by mobile devices, such as mobile phones, tablet PCs and other handheld/portable wireless devices. It is an emerging area within the spectrum of telehealth. In contrast to the internet and medical workstations used in conventional telehealth systems, mobile health uses mobile phones and untethered portable healthcare devices, which are easier to use, less expensive, flexible, compliant with patients' lifestyle and remotely upgradeable. Due to these distinct advantages, mobile health can reach large populations and is often presented and studied as a unique subprovision of healthcare services.
Potential integration and components of a generic mobile health system are illustrated in Figure 1. The mobile phone or tablet PC is the core device linking clinicians with patients in their own environment. Unlike early mobile phones, which were used mainly for voice communications, smartphones have integrated virtually all the core functions of a modern computer, and, hence, the available apps have revolutionized ways people now use them in their everyday lives. These functions can support patients to self-manage their diseases, and provide various communication channels for clinical interventions. The main functions of the smartphone that have enabled its clinical applications include:
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Figure 1.
Potential integration and components of a generic mobile health system.
app: Application.
Voice/video calling: provides a convenient and accepted way for clinicians and patients to remotely communicate with each other as an alternative to face-to-face consultation;
Short message services (SMS) and multimedia message services (MMS): the ability to transmit text messages and video clips/sound files respectively, offers a convenient and cost-effective way to deliver education materials for health behavior or risk-factor modification;
Multimedia functions: smartphones can access and play a large range of multimedia content from online multimedia servers, which can be updated as required and can provide intuitive, accessible health education;
Inbuilt sensors: inbuilt touch, motion and GPS sensors, can obviate the need for additional health devices and provide clinical assessment opportunities, for example quantifying and classifying physical activities and measuring lifestyle and social activities;
Device connectivity: many telemonitoring devices such as ambulatory ECG and BP monitors, can wirelessly connect to mobile phones or tablet PCs, enabling automated data transfer that is more practical and less error prone than manual data entry;
Internet connectivity: 3G/4G and Wi-Fi provides almost ubiquitous access to remotely monitored health data, online education materials, and communication with clinicians.
As illustrated in Figure 1, mobile devices could potentially be a personal hub that gathers and communicates patients' health data to the health services, from where care or education can be delivered remotely by clinicians to a patient in their own environment. For example, patients nominated for home care could be equipped with mobile monitoring device(s) such as BP and ECG monitors, to perform daily (or as recommended) measurements. Wireless monitoring devices enable automatic gathering of data through a dedicated mobile medical app on the smartphone, which would relay the information to a centralized national health network. The information could also include measurements gathered from in-built sensors and manual qualitative data. The data would be structured and/or processed through clinical decision support medical apps available within an enterprise healthcare information system and made available for review by clinicians. Using this information, care could be provided through scheduled consultation via online audio or video for monitoring and diagnosis. Moreover, delivery of feedback on progress, reminders of scheduled care consultation or medications or motivational messages through SMS text or even education through video could be delivered to patients through the smartphone mobile medical app for their self-management. Furthermore, the mobile medical app would be the key source through which the patient would interact to view their progress, communicate with the care provider and guide their self-management.