Members of the GSMA Mobile Health teams recently participated in the 2011 NHS Innovation Expo, including hosting two seminars on mobile health on the topics of “Using Mobile Technologies to Improve Frontline Healthcare and Medication Compliance” and “How can Mobile Transform Healthcare?”  These workshops brought together a diverse range of mobile health experts and featured perspectives from the Continua Health Alliance, Academia, the Mobile Industry, Health Care Administrators and Health professionals. An overview of these sessions is provided below and captures the key messages that each presenter highlighted, representing a variety of views on the priorities in mobile health.

An MNO Perspective:

Peter Carthew, Corporate Business Manager, Public Sector for Orange provided an overview of how mobile technologies can improve frontline healthcare and medication compliance and highlighted the position of Orange UK as a provider of access, services and connectivity that facilitates improved efficiency and effectiveness within healthcare through the launch of two new mHealth services: Smart Numbers and Orange Health Gateway. He highlighted that going forward, Orange UK would focus its strategy on increasingly positioning themselves towards devices in order to influence the types of products that are brought to the market which serve as vehicles for mHealth value-added services. 

A Health Technology Service Provider Perspective:

Santam Bains, the Managing Director of Sero Solutions raised several poignant questions around the delivery of mHealth and emphasized the need to work with stakeholders to ensure that solutions are centred around patient needs and market pull.  He called for the inclusion of mechanisms for integration, accountability, transparency and increased patient autonomy and argued that there is a sound business model for mobile health, especially if one considers the cost burden associated with drug adherence. Since medication spans all treatment pathways along the continuum of care, improved compliance and communication between patients, providers and administrative systems to facilitate proper drug adherence is crucial. Mobile solutions have proven effective for interventions which seek to influence health seeking behaviour and improvements in health outcomes, and there have been promising results seen in studies on mobile as vehicle for improving drug adherence leading to cost-savings across the health value-chain.

A  Community Healthcare Provider Perspective

Jim Ellam of the Assistive Technology Project discussed social care issues and the power of mobile to bring health technology down to the level of end users in their homes, with connectivity being the key to improved service delivery and efficiency across patient, provider and administrative segments.  Jim made the important point that health prevention and promotion are better and less expensive than curative approaches. In order to harness the benefits that this shift entails, improved uptake of mobile technology by front line staff and addressing public confidence in these solutions at the individual, community and marketing levels are key points of departure when designing an mHealth product.  Additionally, ensuring that products brought to market are fit for purpose (ie. provide better value for people paying for care and improved use of work force resources) was identified as key priority area for further consideration.

Some interesting Questions emerged from the session. To contribute your thoughts on these, please post in the comment box below.  

  • From a service user perspective- who do you need to work with to provide best level of care?
  • How do you best transfer information as patients move through the health treatment pathway?  What role can mobile play in this?
  • How can mobile health solutions improve communication between patient and provider?