Mobile Health – Monitoring of SaO2 and Pressure
Nilton Serigioli, Edgar Charry, Rodrigo Reina · InTech eBooks · 2012
IntroductionUse of mobile devices assisting medical practices is acknowledged as Mobile Health (m-Health).M-Health technology involves the mobile telecommunications infrastucture to deliver medical services and medical assistance to patients.Mobile technology is growing up at a fast rate.This rapid development, along with dropping in cost of mobile devices introduces a new scenario where mobile technology is becoming an important tool of information and communication technology (Black et al., 2010).In developing countries, many of those new "mobile citizens" live in poor areas with a scarcity of infrastructure.That is why the use of mobile telephony is a great opportunity to promote health services that could improve the quality of life of those people (Germanakos et al., 2005).M-Health technologies along with electronic systems are changing the profile of medical services.For example, m-Health technologies has the potential to replace 5% of hospitalizations, 5% of in home visits by nurses (home care), and 20% of home visits by health workers, translating into economic use of both time and money to patients and health professionals (Fishman, 1997).The advantages of m-Health include the possibility of establishing a direct link between professional health workers and patients in order to provide efficient medical assistance, especially to the rural population, saving time.and in addition, patients can follow up with their recovery having major access to information to their illnesses (Istepanean, 2006).The advance in telecommunications and information technologies, has made possible the rise of new services which can be delivered through mobile telephony.It was practically unimaginable only few years ago that any kind of medical service could be delivered through the mobile telecommunications infrastructure.Realizing that nowadays many people, including people living in rural areas have access to a cell phone, and that the number of people connected electronically is increasing everyday, many researchers around the globe started to develop diverse healthcare solutions supported by telecommunications technology.This has been the driving force behind m-Health development.In this way, we have seen many groups trying to demonstrate the m-Health potential to support assisted medical care, locally or remotely.However, despite this enthusiasm, many of the efforts have faced high resistance coming from several sides of society, from physicians to government authorities.www.intechopen.com