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patient data. A great deal can be learned through
the implementation of this system and the future
mapping of such an approach into more remote
areas of the developing world.
health care provider and the patient. To achieve
uniform and good cell phone coverage and signal
strength all across a developing country remains
a challenge. For countries with vast geographi-
cal areas and pockets of remote populations, it is
necessary to link these areas with the rest of the
cellular backbone so that they are not left behind
in the mHealth revolution.
FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS
AND CHALLENGES
Health Sensing
In (Esko Alasaarela et al., 2009), it has been
shown that the future of mHealth services faces
more serious challenges arising from process
change than from technical aspects. This problem
is amplified in developing countries due to the
rigidness of government policies and the opposi-
tion to “western” influences and technology. The
results highlighted showed that usability of the
mobile interface takes precedence over issues that
were thought to be more relevant, like security
of patient data.
mHealth solutions of the future will incorporate
wearable sensors interfacing to mobile phones to
sense patient conditions. In (Hassan Ghasemzadeh
et al., 2009), the authors look at the various chal-
lenges associated with the challenges involved
in developing mobile systems for biomedical
applications. Body sensor networks (BSNs) col-
lect physiological data from patients and perform
distributed and collaborative processing. The
challenge in these systems is that since they are
constrained in computation, communication, and
storage, it is desirable to have effective mobile
computing and resource allocation techniques.
Also, these devices should be relatively unobtru-
sive, wearable, and comfortable. Systems devel-
oped today can be used in rehabilitation, sports
medicine, geriatric care, gait analysis, balance
evaluation, and sports training. When designing
sensing capabilities in mHealth solutions, the
following questions need to be answered: what
sort of sensors should be used; how many should
be used; and how frequently should they operate?
Also, in developing countries where literacy levels
are low, how easy would it be for someone to use
these health sensors to monitor their own health?
There needs to be significant training to allow
patients to use BSNs to monitor their health in a
simple and effective way, while being relatively
cheap to implement and operate remotely. There
are already a multitude of applications available
to perform cardiac and glucose monitoring, but
also many options for portable and wearable vital
signs monitoring.
Health Care Provision
Developing countries usually have limited health
care budgets as compared to their more wealthy
counterparts. It is important to keep in mind the
goals that the financing and provision of health care
needs to cater to. These goals include: providing
health care to the poorest of populations which
cannot afford proper health care; minimizing and
avoiding surplus spending on health care; allow-
ing personalized care to patients based on their
individual conditions and preferences. Such goals
can drive the design of a good system for health
care while trying to ensure that mHealth services
are accessible to all sections of the population.
Wireless Communications
Though cell tower coverage has significantly
improved in the developing world, there are still
some areas that suffer from poor coverage. In criti-
cal situations where health support is needed in
real-time, it is essential to have a functional active
wireless link between the mobile devices of the
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