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  • Vera Rulon

    Using mHealth to Improve Quality of Life

    December 8, 2011

    Vera Rulon, Director

    I recently attended the Foundation of NIH’s mHealth Summit. mHealth, the use of mobile devices to manage healthcare can include remote vital sign monitoring, use of devices to send reminders to take medication or check your blood sugar, and even using a smart phone to perform an ECG (as a key note speaker showed us live onstage).
    Raj Shah, chairman and CEO of CTIS Inc., was a keynote speaker on the second day.

    Mr. Shah’s key note was about his goal of supporting patients through the use of mobile platforms. He talked about the value proposition of mobile health, specifically in chronic disease patients. According to Mr. Shah, mobile platforms can enable four key areas to improve care and enable patients:

    • Clinical care – receiving accurate, timely information for best decisions and outcomes e.g. remote monitoring of vital signs
    • Collaborative – target care and reduce errors e.g., timely communication between caregivers, patients, between physicians and specialists
    • Convenience – in managing day to day wellness e.g., listing of diabetes friendly restaurants and
    • Comfort – knowing care management is accessible from everywhere

    What hit home for me was that Mr. Shah wasn’t only speaking from the viewpoint of CEO of a health technology company, but as a patient living with multiple diseases. He understands the point of view of the patient and seeks to improve quality of life through first-hand knowledge. The voice of the customer is key. We should never lose sight of the whole patient which is beyond the medication or blood sugar measure. As Mr. Shah stated in his conclusion “it’s about living life.”

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  1. Pocard said:

    in fact there’s lot of things to do like this.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5BTywzqZU0&context=C305fb8aADOEgsToPDskJWyafFenzF4bqG8EaPFpe9
    or
    http://care-challenge.com/fr/ideas/e-vaccine
    or
    http://propheticsante.over-blog.com/article-m2m-machine-to-machine-_healthcare-2-0-eng-76604581.html

    etc. , etc.
    Best regards

    on December 28, 2011 at 12:33 pm

  2. Vera Rulon said:

    Thanks everyone for your thoughts. Anna — I agree that it’s about the whole patient/person and that it’s about quality of life, not just the process of healthcare itself.
    Kathy, cool stuff! Thanks for posting.
    Greg — thanks so much for your post. I agree that the patient needs to be the focal point of any mHealth solution, and thank you for outlining the barriers/pitfalls to its use. It’s not about the technology…. but about the person.

    on December 12, 2011 at 10:18 pm

  3. Greg Bandru said:

    While I agree conceptually with the increase in quality of life from these devices, the reality is much hard to achive. As someone who has created medical mobile devices for the last 20 years I have seen 1st hand the hard realities of implementing this kind of technology. 3 fundamental issues have always hindered their use; cost (who pays), what to do with the data and who “could” see it, and use automation. For example a device which reminds you to take medication can also send info back on compliance, potentially penalizing you for not correctly taking it. But if the user becomes a slave to the technology, have we really increased their quality of life? Only when the technology can be implemented into the actual lifestyle of the user seamlessly will that make it better for the person.
    I hope to help create that reality, but I think those who rush to market because they can connect the patient to some database, or e-health record system does not do the patient justice. We cannot forget who the technology must service, and sadly in many cases the patient is only a small part of the picture.

    on December 12, 2011 at 9:45 am

  4. Kathy Pappas said:

    Vera,

    This is really good stuff, it also makes me think of something I read recently in the WSJ take a look: http://online.wsj.com/​article/​SB1000142405297020434610457​6639093917015196.html#arti​cleTabs=article

    on December 11, 2011 at 7:13 pm

  5. Mrs. Anna Tafreshi-Tchertkoff said:

    I think that Vera made some excellent points about using certain devices, such as smartphones, etc. Like she said, and Mr. Shah, “It’s about living Life”.

    on December 9, 2011 at 7:19 pm

  6. Vera Rulon said:

    I’d love to hear further discussion on the subject of mHealth and it’s benefits. Let’s get going…. !!

    on December 9, 2011 at 7:14 pm