mHealth For Aging China: Opportunities and Challenges

Abstract

The aging population with chronic and age-related diseases has become a global issue and exerted heavy burdens on the healthcare system and society. Neurological diseases are the leading chronic diseases in the geriatric population, and stroke is the leading cause of death in China. However, the uneven distribution of caregivers and critical healthcare workforce shortages are major obstacles to improving disease outcome. With the advancement of wearable health devices, cloud computing, mobile technologies and Internet of Things, mobile health (mHealth) is rapidly developing and shows a promising future in the management of chronic diseases. Its advantages include its ability to improve the quality of care, reduce the costs of care, and improve treatment outcomes by transferring in-hospital treatment to patient-centered medical treatment at home. mHealth could also enhance the international cooperation of medical providers in different time zones and the sharing of high-quality medical service resources between developed and developing countries. In this review, we focus on trends in mHealth and its clinical applications for the prevention and treatment of diseases, especially aging-related neurological diseases, and on the opportunities and challenges of mHealth in China. Operating models of mHealth in disease management are proposed; these models may benefit those who work within the mHealth system in developing countries and developed countries.

Keywords: aging-related neurological diseases; developing countries; mHealth.

Figure 1.

Classification Treatment System Model. (1) A digital doctor utilizes big data platform on medical health to collect all types of medical records of patients. After automatic classification and the intelligent sorting of history and risk factors, it generates a mobile electronic health medical record, which finally realizes the customized health risk factors management; (2) Doctors are trained and unified (TUDocs) by the standard clinical pathway and put forward the basic treatment recommendations for patients. They provide basic medical service and follow-up service. They can refer patients to medical experts; (3) The experts and networking experts group is responsible for the problems that general doctors cannot solve and provide emergency medical support. Above the experts, there is an experts-cloud, with national or worldwide experts, who are able to join the diagnosis and treatment processes at any time through a mobile phone, tablet or laptop computer. Experts can interact with other experts and experts and doctors can interact with each other in the network.