Mobile Health Care, Design and Development of a Mobile Application Literature review

Mobile Health Care, Design and Development of a Mobile Application - Literature review Example IT has been widely used in the field of business due to its proven benefits in enhancing customer satisfaction. Similarly, medical institutions aim to improve patient care through the use of mobile phones. With the extensive use of mobile technology, patient and doctors have established a relationship; hence, it enhances health care quality. Mobile health is the new method of interacting with patients. mHealth is defined as a â€Å"service or application that involves voice or data communication for health purposes between a central point and remote locations† (Freng, et al., 2011, p.5). mHealth uses devices that will connect medical practitioners with their patients, and mobile device has applications that made communication probable. Applications Used in Mobile Health The most simple and cost effective application utilized in mobile health is short messaging service (SMS). SMS is utilized by hospitals in engaging with their patients through sending reminders on their health behaviors, notes the confirmation of scheduled appointment, informs of the laboratory result, inquiry on hospital records, and sending encouragement for optimistic attitude (CTA, 2011; WHO, 2011). Through this initiative, the attendance of patients increased. Moreover, voice communication is considered as more costly than SMS; however, it enables real-time interaction without the need for face-to-face communication. This is more convenient to use if the patient and nurses prefer seamless communication through â€Å"handoffs and roaming† wherein there is a continuous communication despite the changes in location (Tallukdar, 2010, p.51). Hospitals are encouraging patients to use this application when they live in rural areas that need the immediate attention of medical experts. This application requires no time limit in consulting doctors (Khoumbati, et al., 2010). The most advance mobile application is the development of Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) that is similar with the capability of computers or laptops (Erlandson & Ocklind, 1998). This application authorizes patients to look for their medical data and allows practitioners to view and check the patient’s status (Teong & Jeoti, 2005). On the one hand, doctors used WAP-enabled to review the case of patients and access their medical history, which proved the efficacy of healthcare services (Hameed, et al., 2008). Current Mobile Applications The use of mobile phones is only for simple call and text application, but with the innovation in technology, telecommunications companies continue to compete in improving the users interface through offering various programs to improve healthcare. Health applications are available on iPhones, iPads, or Smartphones that have the ability to download programs. These platforms are developed by Apple, Blackberry, and Google (Boulos, et al., 2011). Most hospitals are adopting the efficiency and reliability of smartphones. The introduction of Google Android paved the way to include in their market medical applications such as HealthPAL that can â€Å"automatically collect data from peripheral monitoring devices in the home.† This is used for monitoring blood pressure, weight scales, and pulse oximeters, which are acclaimed by FDA. Recent application developed by the Android system is the mobile heart monitoring system, which grants users to see their electrodiagram. The Android phone collects, stores, and processes the results to the internet that reached doctors who are authorized to access the site (CTA, 2011, pp.14-15;