Exploiting the Potential and Facing the Challenges of Mobile Devices: Application Examples

An Improved Model for GUI Design of mHealth Context-Aware Applications

“…The use of smartphones and devices connected to Internet has increased in recent years and it will keep increasing in the future [1][2][3]. This spread has given users the opportunity to change from software that worked in PC with wired Internet to software that works in mobile devices with wireless Internet.…”

“…This is reflected in terms as m-learning, m-health, m-commerce or m-banking [1]. Mobile health (mHealth or m-health) can be defined as a part of eHealth that avoid location boundaries [4] by using mobile devices and wireless communication technologies to support healthcare systems [5].…”

“…Finally, the main benefit for management staff is the increase of efficiency, accuracy and procedural tracking in their tasks. mHealth allows patients' empowerment as it increases self-awareness [1,7,8] and self-monitoring [9], which leads to the improvement of patients' decisionmaking and self-management [10,11]. An example of this is the delivery of support and guidance to patients through mobile devices [12].…”

“…This permits patients to receive feedback and encouragement [11], to share and manage knowledge [11,14], and to receive advice from healthcare givers located around the world [9,10,15]. Mobile devices can also improve patients' learning process as it favours the delivery of instructions to react properly to emergencies, to be aware of risks and to improve preventive behaviours [1].…”

“…mHealth solutions have been able to engage remote workers, reduce administrative burden, improve the data quality, increase the reliability on records and boost confidence at the point of contact with patient [20]. More specific benefits are: monitoring efficiently patients attributes and environment [1], reducing admissions and readmissions [21], and cutting the cost of care by patients spending more time out of hospitals [9]. Some mHealth solutions that have improved efficiency and quality are applications for consulting information of a patient [22], booking appointments, renewing prescriptions and consulting with healthcare providers [15].…”