Welcome to T2's Mobile Health Blog
Welcome to the National Center for Telehealth & Technology’s (T2) weekly Mobile Health Blog featuring timely mHealth news from military, industry and academic quarters.
Mobile health represents an integrated system of health care in which health data become interoperable among patients, providers, and electronic records. Providers can educate and render care when and where it is needed. And patients are afforded greater latitude when seeking information and tracking their well-being in the “white spaces” – the time between appointments.
With the emergence of Apple’s App Store in 2008, health-related apps that can be downloaded to a smartphone or a tablet have grown in number and capabilities. Nowadays, the military community can learn about and assess a problem such as PTSD, and even manage symptoms, from a “hip-pocket” accessible mobile app.
Mobile health also involves new uses of existing communication methods. Video calls via webcam or high-resolution technology have the potential to connect a patient to a specialist for a “person-to-person” consultation despite vast distances. Traditional telephone consultation, instant-messaging, and receiving health tips via text-messaging, are forms of mobile care.
Mobile health is innovative because it changes the health care service delivery paradigm. As one industry analyst stated: "mHealth is about fundamentally changing the social contract between patients and doctors."
Mobile health is consistent with the cultivation throughout the Military Health System of the Patient-Centered Medical Home, and promises to be foundational in the move from a “health care system” to a “system for health.” An enterprise-wide mHealth program of care holds the promise of breaking down barriers and the stigma sometimes associated with seeking out health services (particularly behavioral health).
Check in each week as our mobile health team and T2’s partners provide brief updates on the latest developments in mobile technology, government and military mHealth policy, and other issues important to those establishing or promoting mHealth.
