Book Review: mHealth: New Horizons for Health through Mobile Technologies: Based on the Findings of the Second Global Survey on eHealth (Global Observatory for eHealth Series, Volume 3)

Abstract

For the first time, the WHO's Global Observatory for eHealth (GOe) has sought to determine the status of mobile health (mHealth) in Member States; its second global survey in 2009 contained a section specifically devoted to mHealth. Completed by 114 Member States, the survey documented for analysis 4 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. This report aims to make policy-makers aware of the mHealth landscape and the main barriers to implement or scale mHealth projects. It combines the results and analysis of the data gathered from the mHealth survey, and is complemented by 5 country case-studies and a review of the current literature related to mHealth.