m‐Health Care Models and Applications

This chapter presents the clinical evidence for m‐Health in its current mobile phone‐centric format and evaluates the existing clinical landscape for different healthcare services. It focuses on some examples of chronic and noncommunicable diseases and conditions that typically have high levels of prevalence and cost burdens globally, and where mobile phone interventions have been successfully evaluated. The chapter discusses three chronic conditions, namely, diabetes, heart and cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). For other conditions, there has been varying levels of m‐Health interventions; the chapter also discusses some of these and the clinical evidence for these interventions in less detailed form. There is much hype that smartphones are becoming the hub of future medicine, driven by massive consumer‐ or patient‐led mobile healthcare services. Any future m‐Health framework therefore needs to be developed against the background of the smartphone‐ and App‐centric view.