For the first time the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Global Observatory for eHealth (GOe) has sought to determine the status of mHealth in Member States; its 2009 global survey contained a section specifically devoted to mHealth. Completed by 114 Member States, the survey documented for analysis four aspects of mHealth: adoption of initiatives, types of initiatives, status of evaluation, and barriers to implementation. Fourteen categories of mHealth services were surveyed: health call centres, emergency toll-free telephone services, managing emergencies and disasters, mobile telemedicine, appointment reminders, community mobilization and health promotion, treatment compliance, mobile patient records, information access, patient monitoring, health surveys and data collection, surveillance, health awareness raising, and decision support systems.
The survey shows there is a groundswell of activity. The majority of Member States (83%) reported offering at least one type of mHealth service. However, many countries offered four to six programmes. The four most frequently reported mHealth initiatives were: health call centres (59%), emergency toll-free telephone services (55%), managing emergencies and disasters (54%), and mobile telemedicine (49%). With the exception of health call centres, emergency toll-free telephone services, and managing emergencies and disasters, approximately two thirds of mHealth programmes are in the pilot or informal stage.
The survey results highlight that the dominant form of mHealth today is characterized by small-scale pilot projects that address single issues in information sharing and access. There were only limited larger mHealth implementations (primarily supported by public-private partnerships). While it is anticipated that large-scale and complex programmes will become more common as mHealth matures, strategies and policies that integrate eHealth and mHealth interoperability into health services would be wise. mHealth is no different from other areas of eHealth in its need to adopt globally accepted standards and interoperable technologies, ideally using open architecture. The use of standardized information and communication technologies would enhance efficiency and reduce cost. To accomplish this, countries will need to collaborate in developing global best practices so that data can move more effectively between systems and applications.
