For the first time, mHealth Solutions has established the ability to change the face of healthcare delivery around the world. A potent confluence of variables is fueling this shift. Rapid advancements in mobile technologies and applications, a rise in new opportunities for integrating mobile health into existing eHealth services, and ongoing expansion of mobile cellular network coverage are among them.
mHealth is easiest to integrate into processes and services, traditionally relying on voice communication over traditional telephone networks. It would explain why most countries currently have health call centers, toll-free lines, and emergency services available via mobile devices. The application of mHealth Solutions in monitoring, public awareness, and decision support systems is the least common.
The term "mHealth" refers to a variant of the term "eHealth."
The use and capitalization of a mobile phone's core functionality of call and SMS service and more complex functionalities and applications such as GPRS service, 3G and 4G systems, a global positioning system (GPS), and Bluetooth technology are all part of mHealth.
The usage of mobile technologies for health records reveals a significant difference between high-income and low-income countries. For example, high-income countries reported a slightly over 60% adoption rate compared to just over 20% in the other groups. This vast disparity is most likely due to the maturity of electronic health records in high-income countries, where country income reflects technology advancements.
Healthcare compliance portals, also known as mHealth portals, are now defined as transmitting reminder messages to patients by voice or SMS to achieve treatment compliance, disease eradication, and overcome problems such as medication resistance. It has been used to help patients with diabetes, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis (TB).
Chronic illnesses and other viral infections, such as the one looming globally right now, aka Covid-19, which is highly stigmatized, can benefit significantly from health information sent via mobile phones. However, there are few documented mobile phone-based health awareness campaigns, with most examples coming from high-income countries rather than low- and middle-income ones. The preliminary study discovered that service consumption was higher than predicted, with evaluations revealing encouraging results.
Reasons that support eHealth's ability to meet patient-specific demands:
1. Allows patients to reach out to clinicians and receive care more quickly:
Beyond traditional and cumbersome phone connection to physicians and healthcare organizations, mobile health technology allows patients to send secure messages, arrange appointments, and connect with clinicians for telemedicine visits 24 hours a day, seven days a week. One of the fastest expanding uses of mobile devices by patients is mHealth solutions. The ease with which they may perform a provider visit on their phone or tablet, as well as the fact that they won't have to drive to the doctor's office or take time off work, is ideal. In response to the rush, most health systems visit network physicians and outsource telemedicine physicians after hours and on weekends.
2. Medication adherence is improved:
Patients can enhance their chances of taking their medications correctly by using mHealth apps and mobile technology solutions that provide features like automated medication and refill reminders and educational content.
Thousands of apps are available to assist people in remembering to take their medication. In a recent column, I mentioned six top medication adherence apps that remind patients when to take or refill their medications, track pills left over, give instructional content, and more.
3. Remote Patient Monitoring:
The most common use of remote patient monitoring is to assist patients in managing a chronic condition or to check that they are following their hospital discharge instructions and taking their prescriptions correctly. The following are examples of data types transmitted by mobile devices:
Monitors for weight, blood pressure, and heart rate
Glucose meters are tools that regulate the quantity of glucose in the blood.
Data loggers for diets
Remote patient monitoring received a boost in 2019 when the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) established new codes and covered services for these growing services, allowing physicians and healthcare organizations to generate new revenue streams.
4. Improves Patient Safety:
Many patients are unable to recall the names of the medications they are taking and their amounts. Polypharmacy patients, especially those who take more than five prescription medications each day, the elderly, and other high-risk patients, face this challenge in particular.
Many patients are put in danger because they cannot accurately recall their drug list to a physician, ED intake or hospital admittance nurse, or other professional. When clinicians are unsure which medications a patient is taking, drug-to-drug interactions are a possibility.
Adverse drug responses can also occur when a patient is admitted to the hospital but not given a prescription for something they should be taking but failed to notify.
By filling this information gap, mHealth is trying to improve patient safety and drug management. On an uncluttered iPhone or Android screen, these solutions give doctors and other clinicians a bird's-eye view of all prescriptions a patient has been prescribed, as well as pick-up and refill histories, dosage adjustments, and more.
5. Increases Medication Accuracy:
Mobile health technology enhances the capacity to correlate across the health scheme and with referring physicians and office personnel using encrypted messaging and texting, mobile health record access, and cellular phone conversations.
Patients who require medical attention or who have been admitted to the hospital can be alerted via mHealth apps. Clinical Event Notifications, a mobile health application, is helping to improve care transitions. The platform makes it simple to see a patient's whole picture to better coordinate their treatment as they move across settings.
6. Deliver Disease-Related Education:
Mhealth professionals receive real-time notifications on their mobile devices concerning patient Electronic Data Interchange arrivals, admissions, discharges, and transfers. Clinical checklists are also prompted by warnings that help to standardize and streamline care on a case-by-case basis.
The value of mHealth as a tool for providing treatment-related education during complex treatment schedules, such as those in oncology, has also been investigated. In these circumstances, mobile health tools can be a reliable source of relevant treatment information linked to considerable increases in patient-reported quality of life.
7. Chronic Disease Control:
mHealth applications provide continuous and long-term assessments to enhance and control the image of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular problems, epilepsy, asthma, and diabetic conditions, all of which are costly to the system. Furthermore, patients with diabetes must make decisions and be aware of their prescriptions at all times. When blood glucose levels alter and when food is restricted, it is critical to control how many insulin units are required. As a result, standardized devices can perform this management, ensuring greater therapeutic adherence and glycemic control.
8. Budget Cuts in the Health Expenses:
Global government spending on health care has been further slashed as a result of the global economic downturn. Many healthcare expenses are avoided if diseases are identified and treated early, focusing on prevention and health promotion.
9. Data Collection:
MHealth apps use our smartphone gadgets to collect health-related data. As a result, a large amount of essential and chronological data is accumulated. If properly utilized, this data can be a gold mine for scientific research, insurance firms, and even the development of new treatments. They have the potential to forever alter humanity.
10. Convenience:
Not only have mHealth apps made our lives easier, but so has the universalization of high-tech products. Instead of lugging around heavy books, health care professionals can use their mobile devices to obtain information quickly. They don't have to study for pertinent text because they can 'search' it on their phones. This component was from the perspective of a medical professional.
Patients' convenience has also risen as a result of mHealth apps. Doctors and patients can exchange information without ever meeting in person. It is crucial if the patient is too unwell to visit the doctor.
CONCLUSION:
Not only is mobile technology affecting our daily lives, but it is also changing the way we heal. The benefits and drawbacks of combining healthcare and technology are discussed. Using them without sufficient standards, for example, can result in dangerous practices and a breach of patient privacy.
Healthcare providers will need to develop a strategy to maintain high service quality while keeping patients safe sooner or later.
In any case, the potential rewards are always more significant than the risks involved. Well-designed and well-built apps for mHealth have a lot of promise because they will be in higher demand shortly.
We can assume the vast preponderance of healthcare conveniences and medical establishments, including pharmaceutical industry behemoths, to enter the digital app marketplace in the coming years and offer never-before-seen ways to access healthcare for patients of all types of disorders and health problems. The entire healthcare business is projected to be revolutionized like never before as a result of these apps.