Mobile health: beyond consumer apps

Abstract

The explosion of apps for the medical and wellness sectors has been noted by many. Consumer apps, which provide innovative solutions for self management for a range of health problems have flooded the market, due to high consumer demand. More recently we have seen increased presence of truly medical applications for clinical professionals and patients of serious conditions. In the majority of cases consumer based mHealth apps allow people to do old things in new ways, such as recording health measures digitally rather than on paper. Medical apps, aimed at increasing the quality and efficiency of existing health care delivery models, provide clinical staff with convenient tools and easy to access resources and communication mechanisms. Finally, in rare and exciting cases we are seeing mHealth applications that are doing things in entirely new ways to drive real innovation in health care delivery through mobile devices. This tutorial will inform participants about the breadth of mHealth applications that are transforming the Health Services sector and put forward a strong case for HCI and efficacy research.