Mobile-health: A review of current state in 2015

Abstract

Health telematics is a growing up issue that is becoming a major improvement on patient lives, especially in elderly, disabled, and chronically ill. In recent years, information and communication technologies improvements, along with mobile Internet, offering anywhere and anytime connectivity, play a key role on modern healthcare solutions. In this context, mobile health (m-Health) delivers healthcare services, overcoming geographical, temporal, and even organizational barriers. M-Health solutions address emerging problems on health services, including, the increasing number of chronic diseases related to lifestyle, high costs of existing national health services, the need to empower patients and families to self-care and handle their own healthcare, and the need to provide direct access to health services, regardless of time and place. Then, this paper presents a comprehensive review of the state of the art on m-Health services and applications. It surveys the most significant research work and presents a deep analysis of the top and novel m-Health services and applications proposed by industry. A discussion considering the European Union and United States approaches addressing the m-Health paradigm and directives already published is also considered. Open and challenging issues on emerging m-Health solutions are proposed for further works.

Keywords: Health telematics; Healthcare; Mobile health; Telemedicine; e-Health; m-Health.