Can Mobile Health Technologies Transform Health Care?

Steinhubl, Steven R.; Muse, Evan D.; Topol, Eric J.

doi:10.1001/jama.2013.281078

Cited by 442 publications

(328 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…European institutions and national governments are showing widespread support for the integration of digital and mobile health tools into healthcare (NHS 2011(NHS , 2015EC 2012EC , 2014a, and an array of medical and public health professionals have begun to express enthusiasm for how self-tracking devices can be effectively used as tools for helping people deal with medical conditions and improving public health (Harrison et al 2011;Laakso et al 2011;Steinhubl et al 2013). Indeed, as per some of the most out-spoken advocates of mobile health, self-tracking technologies seem to have thrown us onto the cusp of Byet another revolution in healthcare, brought to you by the patient herself as she uses her phone for self-tracking^ (Wiederhold 2012).…”

Section: Self-tracking For Health: Prime Mover Of the Personalized Hementioning

confidence: 99%

“…One of the biggest novelties of digital self-tracking is that it makes it possible to collect data on individuals continuously, creating a much more complex and complete picture than if health data is only collected at regular intervals. Medical professionals have described the use of digital devices with reference to the successful management of conditions like hypertension, diabetes, mental health, and obesity, to improving psychological well-being, health behavior, and physical activity, and to reducing health risk factors (Harrison et al 2011;Foreman et al 2011;Steinhubl et al 2013;Rabin and Bock 2011). A recent study by the Switzerland-based Soreon Research group predicted that wearable health tracking devices will save 1.3 million lives by 2020 (Soreon 2014).…”

Section: Improved Overall Health Vs the Disintegration Of State And mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Self-Tracking for Health and the Quantified Self: Re-Articulating Autonomy, Solidarity, and Authenticity in an Age of Personalized Healthcare

2016

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Self-tracking devices point to a future in which individuals will be more involved in the management of their health and will generate data that will benefit clinical decision making and research. They have thus attracted enthusiasm from medical and public health professionals as key players in the move toward participatory and personalized healthcare. Critics, however, have begun to articulate a number of broader societal and ethical concerns regarding self-tracking, foregrounding their disciplining, and disempowering effects. This paper has two aims: first, to analyze some of the key promises and concerns that inform this polarized debate. I argue that far from being solely about health outcomes, this debate is very much about fundamental values that are at stake in the move toward personalized healthcare, namely, the values of autonomy, solidarity, and authenticity. The second aim is to provide a framework within which an alternative approach to self-tracking for health can be developed. I suggest that a practice-based approach, which studies how values are enacted in specific practices, can open the way for a new set of theoretical questions. In the last part of the paper, I sketch out how this can work by describing various enactments of autonomy, solidarity, and authenticity among self-trackers in the Quantified Self community. These examples show that shifting attention to practices can render visible alternative and sometimes unexpected enactments of values. Insofar as these may challenge both the promises and concerns in the debate on self-tracking for health, they can lay the groundwork for new conceptual interventions in future research.

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Section: Self-tracking For Health: Prime Mover Of the Personalized Hementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Improved Overall Health Vs the Disintegration Of State And mentioning

confidence: 99%

Self-Tracking for Health and the Quantified Self: Re-Articulating Autonomy, Solidarity, and Authenticity in an Age of Personalized Healthcare

2016

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“…There have been a number of unique and important contributions made to the delivery of care and the promotion of health with the use of mHealth applications as supplements to traditional channels of health communication [49]. For example, mHealth applications have been shown to increase the timeliness of health care delivery and the ability to provide relevant health information to key audiences wherever they may be via their mobile phones that they carry with them [26].…”

Section: The Promise Of Mhealthmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is not merely the use of mobile communication channels that can make these applications effective, it is also the ability to match the messages conveyed via these mobile media to the specific health communication needs, orientations, and competencies of intended audience members [49]. For example, practitioners of mHealth must strategically develop and refine health messaging to match the health literacy levels of key audiences [25,35].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The relevance of health literacy to mHealth

Kreps

2017

ISU

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Abstract. This paper examines the importance of health literacy to the design and use of mobile digital health information technology (mHealth) applications. Over the past two decades mHealth has evolved to become a major health communication channel for delivering health care, promoting health, and tracking health behaviors. Yet, there are serious communication challenges that must be addressed concerning the best way to design and utilize mHealth application to achieve key health promotion goals, including assuring the appropriateness and effectiveness of mHealth messaging for audiences with different communication competencies, styles, and health literacy levels, to ensure that mHealth applications are truly effective tools for health promotion.Health literacy is one of the major communication issues relevant to the effective use of mHealth. To be effective, mhealth applications need to match the messages conveyed via these mobile media to the specific health communication needs, orientations, and competencies of intended audience members. Unfortunately, current evidence suggests that many mHealth applications are difficult for audiences to utilize because they provide health information that is not easy for many consumers to understand and apply.Health literacy refers to the ability of participants within the health care system to accurately interpret and utilize relevant health information and resources to achieve their health goals. Evidence suggests that many consumers possess limited levels of health literacy to adequately understand health information, especially when they are feeling ill, since health literacy is both a trait (limited education, language facility, etc.), and a state condition (based on how their current physical and mental states influence their abilities to communicate effectively). Therefore, it is incumbent upon mHealth developers to design and utilize message systems. Strategies for designing and implementing mHealth applications to meet the health literacy levels of different audiences are described in this article.

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“…Moreover, many of the proposed benefits of mHealth have been largely speculative in the literature (see Hall et al, 2014). For example, scholars may speculate about mHealth's potential in transforming health care (Steinhubl, Muse, & Topol, 2013), posit psychological mechanisms in using mHealth to combat obesity (Castelnuovo et al, 2014), recommend the potential use of mHealth apps for managing cannabis use (Norberg et al, 2015), or opine that mHealth has the potential to aid asthma self-management (Pinnock, Slack, Pagliari, Price, & Sheikh, 2007). However, such postulations remain largely unsubstantiated and there is yet to be concrete evidence justifying the use of mHealth, prompting scholars to pause for a "reality check" (PLOS Medicine Editors, 2013).…”

Section: Mhealth and Health Outcomesmentioning

confidence: 99%

mHealth, Health, and Mobility: A Culture-Centered Interrogation

Dutta

Kaur‐Gill

Tan

et al. 2017

Mobile Communication in Asia: Local Insights, Global Implications

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In this chapter, we examine the interplays of the symbolic and the material in the constructions of mHealth. By attending to the key themes that play out in discourses of mHealth, we examine critically the ways in which power plays out in the structuring of mHealth solutions. The articulation of mHealth as instrumental to generating positive health outcomes in communities across Asia erases the contexts within which mobile technologies are constituted. mHealth interventions reproduce the logics of the state and the market, reproducing communities as homogeneous and monolithic sites of top-down interventions.

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Can Mobile Health Technologies Transform Health Care?

Cited by 442 publications

References 4 publications

Self-Tracking for Health and the Quantified Self: Re-Articulating Autonomy, Solidarity, and Authenticity in an Age of Personalized Healthcare

Self-Tracking for Health and the Quantified Self: Re-Articulating Autonomy, Solidarity, and Authenticity in an Age of Personalized Healthcare

The relevance of health literacy to mHealth

mHealth, Health, and Mobility: A Culture-Centered Interrogation

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