Enabling superior m-health project success: a tricountry validation

Abstract

The healthcare industry is facing increasing pressures to embrace new technologies that support greater patient access to, and higher quality of (but at the same time offer cost-effective), healthcare delivery. This pressure has spawned a plethora of initiatives to embrace the possibilities and potentials of technologies to develop and then diffuse new devices, new pharmaceutical products and support minimal invasive surgical techniques that will facilitate superior healthcare delivery. Pursuing such initiatives from idea generation to commercialisation and adoption, however, also necessitates new alliances between academe and industry to ensure rigorous research followed by rapid diffusion to support the realisation of these initiatives so that the patient becomes the ultimate beneficiary. This in turn requires new research methodologies for such applied research scenarios. The Accelerated Mapping-to-Realisation (AMR) methodology is used as an appropriate knowledge-based methodology to ensure academic rigour and validation and also facilitate rapid diffusion and commercialisation of m-health initiatives.

A Transaction Cost Assessment of a Pervasive Technology Solution for Gestational Diabetes

“…In fact, the solution is very similar to Short Message Service (SMS) applications which are renowned for their popularity (Mackay & Weidlich, 2007;O'Doherty et al, 2010;Oh et al, 2008). It is, therefore, anticipated that diabetes sufferers will find the solution easy to use and useful as also supported in preliminary studies and assessments in previous trials both in the US and Canada (Wickramasinghe & Goldberg, 2004Wickramasinghe, Goldberg, & Bali, 2007. Additionally, healthcare professionals that have used the proposed solution have indicated that the functionality that concerns them (Figure 3) is also easy to use and useful (Wickramasinghe & Goldberg, 2004Wickramasinghe, Goldberg, & Bali, 2007.…”

Essential Considerations for Successful Consumer Health Informatics Solutions

“…In many ways, this emerging area is being heralded as the best way for information technology (IT) to facilitate patient-centric healthcare delivery 2 , 3 . Moreover, it facilitates and enables empowerment and superior self-management 2 3 4 5 .…”

“…Moreover, CHI promises a new era of health computing services that will not only help to serve patients but also providers and thus impact, in a positive way, the other healthcare web of players including healthcare organizations, payers, and regulators 3 . A large part of consumer health informatics is focused around prevention, self-management, and providing individual consumers with the technologies and information they need to better manage their health and wellness 1 2 3 4 5 .…”

“…Systems being developed within this domain help to digitalize the health sector, thereby ensuring that access to the right care and information, at the right time, and in the right form is possible, effective, and easily attainable 3 4 5 . CHI systems are therefore believed to make up a framework that involves research, enhancement, and implementation of computer systems for the integration of healthcare services and applications for consumers 3 , 5 . The framework of CHI is also believed to incorporate informatics utilities that are useful to assist individuals who are not patients but just want to maintain good health, e.g., self-monitoring solutions like FitBit for measuring the number of steps 3 .…”

“…By definition, for most sufferers of diabetes (or other chronic diseases) there is no likely cure which makes prudent management of their condition key to living a quality life 6 . Good management is predicated on pertinent information and germane knowledge 5 , which at times is not always easy for these patients to access and/ or acquire. It is primarily for this reason that many believe consumer health informatics may hold the key to facilitating superior chronic disease management, and in particular better self-management 3 .…”