Over the last few years, mobile health has become a hot topic. Mobile health, also referred to as mHealth, is a technology that uses mobile apps, sensors, social media, and location tracking technologies to obtain medical data and to provide health services (Wu et al., 2021). But the question raised in this blog is: can the innovation ‘mobile health’ replace, and therefore also disrupt, the industry of physical health care?
In the study of Abelson et al. (2017), it is suggested that mHealth is a promising technology to improve the recovery process after a surgery. The article explains that mHealth can accomplish better monitoring, improved communication, minimized follow-up visits, improved patient convenience and knowledge about the diseases. On the other hand, there are also downsides mentioned. These downsides are protecting personal health information that is collected, technology effectiveness and failure, preference for face-to-face interaction, level of effort required to understand the technology and the question whether the elderly will master the technology.
In a recent study, the question if mHealth could reduce the number of revisits and rehospitalization with patients who have the heart condition ‘atrial fibrillation’ was raised (Guo et al., 2020). The research shows that an integrated care approach to holistic atrial fibrillation care in combination with mobile health technology lowers the risks of clinical adverse events and visits to the hospital.
To summarize, mobile health could potentially reduce rehospitalization and accomplish better monitoring, improved communication and so on. Unfortunately, mHealth is not suited to replace the whole physical care system. The patients fear for the loss of a personal relationship with the doctors and the distribution of the personal data that is collected while using the mHealth technology.
To conclude, the physical health care can be partly replaced by mHealth but can never fully disappear. This means that the physical health care industry will be disrupted by mHealth.
Abelson, J. S., Kaufman, E., Symer, M., Peters, A., Charlson, M., & Yeo, H. (2017). Barriers and benefits to using mobile health technology after operation: A qualitative study. Surgery, 162(3), 605–611. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.surg.2017.05.007
Guo, Y., Lane, D. A., Wang, L., Zhang, H., Wang, H., Zhang, W., Wen, J., Xing, Y., Wu, F., Xia, Y., Liu, T., Wu, F., Liang, Z., Liu, F., Zhao, Y., Li, R., Li, X., Zhang, L., Guo, J., . . . Fulin, G. (2020). Mobile Health Technology to Improve Care for Patients With Atrial Fibrillation. Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 75(13), 1523–1534. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacc.2020.01.052
Wu, J., Xie, X., Yang, L., Xu, X., Cai, Y., Wang, T., & Xie, X. (2021). Mobile health technology combats COVID-19 in China. Journal of Infection, 82(1), 159–198. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinf.2020.07.024
