“we’re really excited to be part of this initiative with BUPA, the ITU and the WHO. The reason we’re so excited is because obviously we accept that diabetes is one of the biggest challenges facing the world but we also see that mobile communications are one of the biggest opportunities we have at the moment so it makes really good sense to bring that challenge and opportunity together. We see mHealth as one of the tools in fighting the spread of diabetes and making the lives of people with diabetes better. The key however is really ensuring that mHealth is embedded within healthcare programmes it’s not an optional add on extra but it’s part of how we do good healthcare with people who have diabetes”
Petra Wilson, CEO of the IDF (and former Director of Connected Health at Cisco) speaking at last weeks ‘Be Healthy Be Mobile’ BUPA/ITU mHealth launch event in London.
I think this is a really positive development as while the IDF estimated that diabetes accounted for $548 Billion in Healthcare spend in 2013 the 5 day program for the IDF’s recent World Diabetes Congress (held in Melbourne in December 2013) was completely lacking in any academic representation of the M2M and mHealth opportunities (the only mention came about as a result of the IDF’s collaboration with the GSMA on the ‘mHealth Cycling Tour’ that amounted to little more than some good PR).
One thought on “The International Diabetes Federation calls for mHealth to become an embedded compulsory part of how we provide quality care for diabetics”