Why Mobile is the health delivery platform of the future

The 2011 mHealth Summit, #mhs10 on twitter, just wrapped up in Washington DC, featuring a bevy of significant, influential speakers, presenters and attendees. If you weren't already a convert to the idea that mobile is a significant health delivery platform for the future, then perhaps the caliber of participants at the mHealth Summit might help. They included speaker such as Bill Gates, Ted Turner, and David Aylward of the mHealth Alliance; publications and research organizations such as Health Affairs, the Pew Center, the WHO, the NIH, AHRQ; and corporations and ventures of every hue including AT&T, Johnson & Johnson, FrontlineSMS, Datadyne, Rx-Text, Humana, Red Cross, Pfizer, Sproxil, Vodafone…. Every color of the social, business, research, health care and public health sector interested in improving health through the innovative use of technology.

Even in many of the poorest corners of the globe, mobile devices are ubiquitous. For example:

• 7 of every 10 mobile user lives in the developing world.


• Globally there are 5 billion mobile phone subscribers


• 33% of Indians living in rural villages has a mobile phone


• Some 75% of all mobile users have texting ability and GPS access


• Within 5 years 60 percent of mobile phones should have access to the web

In addition to providing data management services, such as Datadyne's Episurveyor program (who recently announced that they will soon have an iPhone app), mobile devices are sprouting new capabilities seemingly by the second. Midwives can use them for fetal monitoring or wireless ultrasound. Surgeons can transmit clinical images to consultants around the globe to get a second opinion. There are also applications for health reminders and chronic disease management. Mobile access to electronic health records is certainly on the horizon. When you view mobile devices more as pocket sized computers tied into the global communication network of the world-wide-web, you begin to realize that imagination may be the only limit to where we see these devices cropping up in the health sector. The combination of public health, health sciences, business savvy, and technological innovation that is needed to actually successfully implement an mhealth project is exciting because of its interdisciplinary nature. For mhealth to succeed, we need to step out of our professional silos and work across sectors towards common goals of sustainability, development and health improvement.

Are you convinced that mobile is the most exciting health delivery platform of the future? I'm especially interested in reasons why you might NOT be so excited about the potential for mobile devices to enhance health improvement efforts.

Photo credit: The author, via Flickr