The advances in technology have opened the door to the creation of plenty of new technologies, and mHealth is part of this. With the help of mHealth, you are able to access a large variety of medical care and, in this way, treat an illness or any health concern you might have. You can have a long list of advantages with mHealth, and most of them include better access to care and greater convenience that come at a reduced cost.
mHealth stands for Mobile Health, and this new technology can offer a wide range of services to patients and medical specialists. With mHealth, you can benefit from a faster and cheaper diagnosis, which can be an essential factor that makes individuals interested in it. This is why a lot of healthcare organizations have started to understand the importance of mHealth apps and, in this way, consider them to offer better services to their customers. There are many situations when a mobile phone has proved to be helpful in a medical problem, which has made some come up with the idea of mHealth. In this article, we will explore this interesting technology in more detail.
What exactly is mHealth?
Mobile health (mHealth) has evolved a lot in recent times, and now, it has started to be a growing trend, and it can become a new future in the healthcare sector. This is an even more critical fact as more and more individuals are using mobile phones, and they can access medical services using their smartphones. The need for telemedicine has started to be seen, especially during the pandemic, when individuals needed to reduce their visits outside, so telemedicine has proved to be very helpful during that time. With the help of mobiles, many healthcare providers have managed to stay ahead of the curve and still offer customers the chance to continue to have access to medical services.
Unfortunately, in regular medical services, people can still deal with medical negligence. Medical negligence happens when a healthcare professional doesn’t provide their duty of care, and as a result, someone will suffer because of this. What qualifies as medical negligence? Many scenarios fit into the medical negligence category, such as medication and prescription errors, misdiagnosis, birth injuries, and surgical errors, among others. This is why medical professionals should do research and discover the best ways to reduce the chances of medical negligence, and technology can help in this regard.
What are the use cases of mHealth?
Self-monitoring
One of the best advantages of mHealth is that it helps with self-monitoring. With a healthcare app, patients are more inclined to check and monitor their health. This self-monitoring can reduce dealing with severe complications, as individuals can keep constant track of every change that can happen to their health. Many features of healthcare apps can monitor patients’ health, such as sugar testing, oximeters, or activity level measures.
Chronic disease management
Chronic diseases need constant monitoring, and thanks to mHealth, patients can finally benefit from this feature. In the past, people suffering from chronic diseases were only checked at periodic intervals, but that is not the case anymore, and thanks to mHealth, they can also monitor themselves regularly.
Appointment scheduling
Another great advantage of mHealth is the fact that the appointments get much easier, and they can be done online using mobile phones. This also reduces some of the chores of the administrative employees from healthcare organizations, and patients can benefit from better accessibility. In this way, all the steps get more automated. Other than this, mobile apps can also send appointment reminders to ensure that a patient doesn’t forget about attending it.
Medical data records
Mobile health apps better track medical data records, which is very important for offering the right diagnosis. This also makes things easier for healthcare providers, who need to provide their medical data records to numerous healthcare professionals. Instead, with a healthcare mobile app, they can keep all this information in a simplified way and offer it to medical professionals when needed.
What are the benefits of mHealth?
Better efficiency and accessibility
With the help of mHealth, individuals can access medical professional services only by using their phone. mHealth also brings better efficiency, as it is very easy to access all the medical services, which, in the end, can enhance patient experience. This applies even more to those individuals living in remote areas, who might find it quite challenging to access different medical services. However, with mHealth, they can book an appointment or have consultations from the comfort of their homes.
A low rate of medical cancellations
In most cases, patients book a consultation, but because life gets in the way or because they forget, they won’t arrive at the doctor. Thanks to mHealth, patients can receive alerts, which can lead to a low rate of medical cancellations. Cancellations can also cause healthcare providers to lose a great amount of money, which is not good for their bottom line. This is why healthcare individuals should consider healthcare management apps.
Reduced expenses
Unfortunately, medical services are not cheap. mHealth can help patients pay less when arriving at the doctor, as with these apps, individuals can keep better track of their health and pay more attention to their well-being. Additionally, with the help of these apps, patients can learn more about good healthcare practices, and in this way, their health won’t worsen even more. Other than this, with the help of mHealth, individuals can reduce expenses associated with travel costs.
Improved patient engagement
Another important feature of mHealth is the fact that it engages patients better. Patients can monitor their health better or even improve their health literacy, and in this way, do what it takes to become healthier or treat an illness. This can improve their satisfaction, which also makes them engage in a health application.
mHealth has improved traditional medical services, and we are looking forward to seeing what the future will bring to them.
