Using mHealth for monitoring symptoms in children

Recent World Health Organization studies show that with 5 billion mobile phone subscriptions worldwide and almost 85% of the world population having access to a mobile phone and the internet, people are now using smartphones and mobile technologies to improve their access to healthcare. This has resulted in healthcare system in US undergoing massive transformation and increased personalization of healthcare with the focus on the development of patient-centric healthcare models. The resultant innovation, where mobile devices and the internet are playing a greater part in providing better healthcare is being termed mHealth or Mobile Health.

The Global Observatory for eHealth defined mHealth or Mobile health as the use of phones and wireless technologies to access health facilities and medical care. The best thing about mHealth is that it is being used to provide better healthcare in geographical locations suffering from a shortage of quality healthcare facilities in the USA. The applications of Mobile Health are innumerable: for treatment of diseases, remote patient management, surveillance and tracking of diseases and epidemics. Various components of mHealth include mobile apps, wearable devices and online availability of health-related data that provides for streamlined and more convenient management of diseases and chronic illnesses.

At every stage of human evolution, advances in technology have made life easy and more convenient. Currently, when most of us rely on the internet and mobile devices for almost everything, using an app or going online for healthcare too, makes a lot of sense. Currently, more and more patients and doctors are incorporating the concept of mHealth to make availing and providing healthcare more convenient and the reason for the popularity of this concept with medical professionals as well as patients is the convenience and the benefits that it offers.

The first and foremost advantage of Mobile Health is the ease of connecting with a medical professional. Searching for doctors and connecting with doctors using mobile applications is easier and faster. Additionally, the apps equip medical professionals with technological advancements that help connect with patients and provide them with remote treatment and monitoring easily. This is easing the stress on medical professionals, making it convenient for them to provide continuous care and is making it easy for the patients to access quality healthcare.

Mobile devices and wireless technology help in improving access to information. Availability of patient’s medical and treatment history through secure and sharable online sources helps the medical practitioners in providing accurate and faster healthcare services. Additionally, patients also have a massive amount of information in their hands that can help them better understand their medical problem as well as the treatment provided.

This is perhaps the best benefit of Mobile Health technology; it provides practitioners with advanced technology that help them remotely monitor their patients. Using mHealth doctors can monitor the symptoms as well as ensure treatment compliance. Numerous studies have shown that mHealth technology can be extremely beneficial in the monitoring of kids, seniors and patients requiring critical care.

Statistics show that 1 out of 4 children is living with a chronic disease today, be it obesity, diabetes, asthma or learning and behavioural disorders. Studies have shown that there are positive implications of mHealth on accessible, continuous and coordinated medical care. This concept can decrease the negative effects of fragmented healthcare services, limited resources, institutionally as well as financially, and result in improvement in the healthcare services provided, especially for children with chronic illnesses. Studies have also shown that accessibility to 24-hour paediatric healthcare services, even if it is remote, decreases the stress levels in the parents, thus having positive effects on the health and development of the patient.