Was a Mobile Health Strategy One of Your New Year's Resolutions?

摘要

Culture change is hard in any organization. However, it can often lead to positive results. We believe that the culture of health care needs to focus on how mobile health tools can assist in care provision in hospitals and health systems. In this installment, we explore some of the steps necessary to help move mobile health into the mainstream of health care. Both of us are car guys and, as you know by now, technology enthusiasts. One of us started driving before there were seat belts in cars, central controlling computers, and GPS that gives us turn-by-turn directions and even helps us navigate around traffic and road construction problems. These days, we get e-mails directly from our cars telling us the status of their systems and their eventual need for maintenance. As we drive, we receive alerts when tire pressure is low; we are told which tire needs air and how much to give it. We can use our smartphones to unlock a door from across the country when our spouses lock their keys in their vehicles. We are able to start the car engine in cold weather from the breakfast table before we grab our coats to begin our commutes. As we approach our vehicles, they adjust the seat, mirrors, and radio stations to our preferences. Our windshield wipers have rain sensing technology to control their speed. In the early days of driving, we got very little information from our vehicles to help us with the task of reaching our destination and monitoring our vehicles. We think this is a good analogy for how available mobile technology can be employed to reach our health care destinations and outcomes.