How can m-health improve patient care?

 1.  Remote Patient Monitoring

Remote patient monitoring is the use of devices to capture patient data at one location and then transmit it electronically to healthcare professionals at a different location. These professionals can then review the data and make treatment decisions.

As the Center for Connected Health Policy (CCHP) notes, remote patient monitoring programs can collect a range of health data, including patient vital signs, weight, blood pressure, blood sugar, and heart rate. CCHP goes on to state that, "Monitoring programs can … help keep people healthy, allow older and disabled individuals to live at home longer, and avoid having to move into skilled nursing facilities. Remote patient monitoring can also serve to reduce the number of hospitalizations, readmissions, and lengths of stay in hospitals — all of which help improve quality of life and contain costs."

 2.  Medication Management

 Mobile medication management can encompass many types of mHealth solutions that are designed for healthcare organizations, providers, and patients.

Mobile medication management is an area of expertise for Cureatr. Meds 360° is our medication management platform that provides organizations and clinicians — including physicians and pharmacists — with a comprehensive view of a patient's medication history. Among Meds 360°'s many benefits: the ability for clinicians to reduce medication errors and improve medication adherence following patient encounters.

As an HIT Consultant article states, "By integrating critical medication management technologies with the convenience of mobile devices, physicians are armed with a comprehensive range of patient-centered technologies that extend to the full lifecycle of patient care, regardless of their physical location."  

 

 3. Medical Imaging

One of the most exciting and emerging applications for mHealth is in the field of medical imaging. As smartphone technology has seen significant improvements in recent years (e.g., image quality, camera capabilities, speed, data transfer), companies are working to take advantage of these more powerful devices to transform imaging.

For example, the Butterfly iQ is a pocket-sized ultrasound device that connects to a smartphone. As a Fast Company article notes, it was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2017 for 13 clinical applications, including obstetric, lung, and cardiac imaging. At about $2,000, the device costs substantially less than traditional ultrasound machines, which, as the article states, "… puts the device within reach of smaller medical practices, health clinics, and first responders. It could help patients, too, by saving them a hospital visit."

While that price may sound low, how about $100? University of British Columbia engineers announced in 2018 that they had developed an ultrasound transducer (i.e., probe) that is no bigger than a Band-Aid, is portable, wearable, and can be powered by a smartphone.

Substantial savings associated with the technology are attributable, in part, to researchers replacing the piezoelectric crystals used in conventional scanners with tiny vibrating drums made of polymer resin that are cheaper to manufacture.