It’s not always obvious how big the opportunity for connected mHealth Records is because not many of us are familiar with the 8 Unique Abilities of Mobile as the newest Mass Media:
1st – mobile is personal
2nd – mobile is permanently carried
3rd – mobile is always on
4th – mobile has a built-in payment channel
5th – mobile is available at the point of creative impulse
6th – mobile is most accurate at measuring its audience
7th – only mobile can capture the social context of consumption
8th – only mobile can offer augmented reality
You can learn more about these by watching Tomi Ahonen in this PicNic Amsterdam Video OR reading his books or blog.
In conversations with Healthcare Professionals I so often meet with people who say: “Ah I get it, yes… 1,2 and 3 are important… because being personal, carried around and always on provides the ability to push information” and yes of course we might have our personal favorites, but we must realise that ALL of them represent the opportunity for mHealth and mHR’s.
As is so often the case in mHealth the only thing limiting us is our imagination so here are a few examples of some of the new opportunities that arise from these 8 unique abilities:
1st unique ability – mobile is personal
It almost goes without saying that when you’re dealing with the most sensitive information an individual has, and information for which the loss often has little/no recourse, there are few priorities higher than confidentiality and privacy. The fact that mobiles are not shared sets them head and shoulders above other mediums for communicating with patients.
2nd unique ability – mobile is permanently carried
Health has always been mobile, but having Health information and advice on hand 24/7 is revolutionary. Not only does this serve the need for informed care in an emergency response but it’s also helpful in the delivery of Medications by ensuring the delivery of the Right Medication in the Right Dose/Route of Administration at the Right Time.
3rd unique ability – mobile is always on
This makes it the ideal platform for collecting and processing reminders, updates, and data from sensors:
4th unique ability – mobile has a built-in payment channel
This enables an open commercial market where a care provider can sell direct to patients and entrepreneurs/innovation thrive. Evidence for this can be found by comparing the stagnant innovation we saw when operators where the gate keepers (ie. you had to retail through a Mobile Operator’s Portal) to todays situation where there have been hundreds of Healthcare Applications created and sold through the iPhone App Store.
5th unique ability – mobile is available at the point of creative impulse
6th unique ability – mobile is most accurate at measuring its audience
Accurate collaborative data analysis can provide feedback to accurately influence the direction and design of direct care programs.
7th unique ability – only mobile can capture the social context of consumption
It’s all too often that I hear Healthcare Industry executives saying “Great, mobile lets us push information to the individual” but without the social context this often fails or isn’t sustainable. Mobile + “Social Context” ensures the message is delivered at the right time eg. when it’s actionable.
Instead of asking a driver how he’s feeling when he’s taking a handsfree call and driving down the motorway how about a multimedia motivational message as you’re waiting for the lift when you get to work?
8th unique ability – only mobile can offer augmented reality
[...] Article 3G Doctor Blog, 11 January 2010 SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "So is a mHealth Record just a “Mobile Optimised” Electronic Health Record?", url: "http://articles.icmcc.org/2010/01/11/so-is-a-mhealth-record-just-a-%e2%80%9cmobile-optimised%e2%80%9d-electronic-health-record/" }); [...]
[...] So is a mHealth Record just a “Mobile Optimised” Electronic Health Record? [...]
I absolutely agree with the stated news, health is without a doubt the most important thing in the world.To maintain good health: eat lightly, breathe deeply, live moderately, cultivate cheerfulness, and maintain an interest in life. Best Wishes
Yet another article that makes me feel that mobile is going to revolutionize healthcare. The diagram for the #3, mobile is always on is so powerful in terms of easing the load on the user to provide all that data.
I agree, I think it will revolutionize health care also along with many other industries. Since predictions for mobile by 2012 will be 90% of consumer IP traffic.
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[...] To get an even better insight check out Eric’s TedMed talk in which you’ll hear him enthusiastically describing the opportunity for dumb shared landline phones to help sense patient health and well being despite the fact that the whole fixed phone idea is a concept that is on the decline the world over and will never be able to leverage the 8 unique benefits of mobile as the newest mass media: [...]
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[...] – as the saying goes: “when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail”. Mobile is the newest and most poorly understood mass media. As such it is as different from the Computer, TV, Radio, Cinema, Newspaper that came before [...]
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[...] mHealth is so much more… we’ve had wireless for decades, mHealth is the leverage of Mobile, the newest Mass Media, to improve Health. Read about the 8 already identified unique advantages and how they can be leveraged. [...]
[...] appreciated it’s a wide range of things. I think the 8 already identified unique attributes incorporate these and many more. I also think that as mHealth services become more automated patients won’t think of them as [...]
[...] medical schools begin to grasp the full potential of the mHealth opportunity, the idea of using a tablet to view lecture notes or text book content is going to seem really [...]
[...] is where readers need to remind themselves of the 8 already identified unique abilities of mobile as the newest mass media and how these can be applie…. When you carry your permanently internet connected laptop with you all the time and leave it on [...]
[...] He’s also spot on when he talks of how mobile access helps because it is tech that is personal, permanently carried, always on and available at the point of creative impulse – like when you’re out ploughing your fields in your [...]