# Mhealth Informatics: A New Frontier for Health Care
Mhealth informatics is a branch of health informatics that focuses on the use of mobile devices and wireless technologies to collect, store, analyze, and communicate health information. Mhealth informatics aims to improve the quality, accessibility, and efficiency of health care delivery, especially in low-resource settings and for underserved populations. Mhealth informatics also has the potential to empower patients and health care providers with timely and personalized information, enhance health education and awareness, and support public health interventions and research.
## What is Health Informatics?
Health informatics is a multidisciplinary field that uses data analytics to develop insights and drive innovations in the health care industry. Professionals in the field use big data and artificial intelligence produced through the digitization of health care records, systems, and processes to improve patient care, public health, and overall health outcomes. [1]
Health informatics combines medicine fields with computing fields, such as computer engineering, software engineering, information engineering, bioinformatics, bio-inspired computing, theoretical computer science, information systems, data science, information technology, autonomic computing, and behavior informatics. [2]
Health informatics can be applied to various domains of health care, such as clinical informatics, bioinformatics, public health informatics, consumer health informatics, nursing informatics, dental informatics, pharmacy informatics, and imaging informatics. [3]
## What is Mhealth Informatics?
Mhealth informatics is a subdomain of health informatics that specifically deals with the use of mobile devices and wireless technologies for health-related purposes. Mhealth stands for mobile health, which is defined by the World Health Organization as “the provision of health services and information via mobile technologies such as mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs).” [4]
Mhealth informatics covers a wide range of applications, such as:
– Remote monitoring of vital signs, symptoms, medication adherence, and chronic conditions
– Telemedicine and teleconsultation between patients and health care providers
– Mobile learning and training for health care professionals
– Mobile decision support systems and clinical guidelines
– Mobile access to electronic health records and databases
– Mobile health promotion and behavior change interventions
– Mobile disease surveillance and outbreak response
– Mobile data collection and analysis for health research
## Why is Mhealth Informatics Important?
Mhealth informatics has several advantages over traditional health informatics methods. Some of these are:
– Mobility: Mhealth devices are portable and can be used anytime and anywhere, which increases the convenience and accessibility of health information and services.
– Connectivity: Mhealth devices can connect to various networks and platforms, such as cellular networks, Wi-Fi networks, cloud computing services, social media platforms, etc., which enables real-time communication and collaboration among different stakeholders.
– Affordability: Mhealth devices are relatively cheaper than desktop computers or laptops, which lowers the cost barriers for health care delivery and consumption.
– Scalability: Mhealth devices can reach a large number of users with minimal infrastructure requirements,
which facilitates the scaling up of health interventions and research.
– Personalization: Mhealth devices can collect and analyze individual data, such as location, preferences,
behavior patterns, etc., which allows for tailored and targeted health information and services.
## What are the Challenges of Mhealth Informatics?
Mhealth informatics also faces some challenges that need to be addressed in order to ensure its effectiveness
and sustainability. Some of these are:
– Privacy: Mhealth devices collect sensitive personal data that can be vulnerable to unauthorized access or misuse by hackers or third parties. Therefore, adequate security measures and ethical standards need to be implemented to protect the privacy of users.
– Quality: Mhealth devices vary in their quality and reliability depending on their manufacturers,
models,
features,
and software updates. Therefore,
quality assurance mechanisms need to be established to ensure the accuracy,
validity,
and usability of mhealth data
and applications.
– Regulation: Mhealth devices operate in different legal
and regulatory environments depending on their countries,
regions,
and contexts. Therefore,
regulatory frameworks need to be harmonized
and updated to address the emerging issues
and challenges of mhealth informatics.
– Evaluation: Mhealth devices generate large amounts of data that can be difficult to analyze
and interpret. Therefore,
evaluation methods need to be developed
and applied to measure the impact
and outcomes of mhealth interventions
and research.
## Conclusion
Mhealth informatics is a new frontier for health care that offers many opportunities
and benefits for improving the quality,
accessibility,
and efficiency of health care delivery,
especially in low-resource settings
and for underserved populations. However,
mhealth informatics also poses some challenges that need to be overcome in order to ensure its effectiveness
and sustainability. Therefore,
mhealth informatics requires a collaborative
and multidisciplinary approach that involves various stakeholders,
such as health care providers,
patients,
policy makers,
researchers,
developers,
and regulators.
## References
[1] Coursera. (2023). What Is Health Informatics? Definition + How to Get Started. Retrieved from https://www.coursera.org/articles/what-is-health-informatics
[2] Wikipedia. (2023). Health informatics. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_informatics
[3] USF Health Online. (2017). What is Health Informatics? Retrieved from https://www.usfhealthonline.com/resources/health-informatics/what-is-health-informatics/
[4] World Health Organization. (2011). mHealth: New horizons for health through mobile technologies. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/goe/publications/goe_mhealth_web.pdf
[5] Michigan Technological University. (n.d.). What is Health Informatics? Retrieved from https://www.mtu.edu/health-informatics/what-is/
