using the public mobile network for health care (“mhealth”) ian leslie [email protected]...
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Using the Public Mobile Network for Health Care (“mHealth”)
19 January 2011
Context
• Based on investigation for China Mobile: Report out in February 2011
• Looking at existing and potential applications• Looking at drivers and inhibitors
• Global perspective but heavy China focus• Rather broad interpretation of mHealth
application
General Observations• No shortage of ideas• Distinction between mobile and non-mobile
communication is unhelpful, however:– The smallest global infrastructure gap is in mobile
communication. Inexpensive “smart” handsets means that this gap, if anything, will narrow.
– For the majority of the world’s population, the only port of interaction with information systems is the mobile handset
– The single electrical interface that is most widely deployed in the world is the micro USB port on mobile phones. More than any given power socket!
• Huge potential for transfer of innovation…
… but Need to Partition the Application Space
• By economy: developed, emerging, developing• By interaction with the health care system• By who perceives value: consumer/patient,
health care provider, government, NGO
• Classify China as “emerging” but lessons from China need to be abstracted
Most Developed mHealth App in China?
Application Types
Drug Anti-counterfeiting
Photo reproduced by permission of Sproxil
“plug-in” innovation
Mobile phone aberrometer
•Under $2•Uses mobile phone display•Two parts: lenses, software application that runs directly on phone•Diagnosis for near- and far-sightedness and astigmatism
Photo reproduced by permission of MIT
What We Didn’t Find
• Much evidence that people were building in evaluation to their applications
• Any evidence that information generated by mobile applications in general or mHealth applications in particular was being used to inform public health
Speculation
• Consumer led, self-help, “plug-in” innovation will flourish in developed world
• Innovation which requires interaction with the medical establishment will flourish in the emerging world
• Developing world will have distinct applications, but should transfer where possible from the others