A systematic review of mHealth funded R&D activities in EU: Trends, technologies and obstacles

ABSTRACT Objective: This study provides a systematic review of EU-funded mHealth projects. Methods: The review was conducted based mainly on the Projects and Results service provided by the EU Open Data Portal. Even though the search strategy yielded a large number of results, only 45 projects finally met all the inclusion criteria. Results: The review results reveal useful information regarding mHealth solutions and trends that emerge nowadays in the EU, the diseases addressed, the level of adoption by users and providers, the technological approaches, the projects’ structure, and the overall impact. New areas of application, like behavioral intervention approaches as well as an apparent trend towards affective computing, big data, cloud computing, open standards and platforms have also been recognized and recorded. Core legal issues with regard to data security and privacy still pose challenges to mHealth projects, while commercialization of the developed solutions is slow. Interdisciplinary consortia with the participation of a significant number of SMEs and public healthcare organizations are also key factors for a successful project. Conclusion: The study provides researchers and decision-makers with a complete and systematically organized knowledge base in order to plan new mHealth initiatives.