The pace of global advances in technology creates huge opportunities for the healthcare industry to improve the level of service that patients receive. At the same time, integrating mobile technology into healthcare services presents challenges – challenges that the Feb. 11 “Mobile Healthcare on the Move” event sought to explore.
Stanley Li, Founder of DXY, said there are a staggering number of mobile healthcare applications available to consumers, and these apps serve as an important foundation for mobile health. However, “lonely data” is not useful for making clinical decisions. The data needs to connect doctor and patient. Liu Xiao of Dorenfest China Healthcare Group shared a case study in which a hospital in Boston integrated data collected from patients’ homes into their health records, giving doctors what they need to make more informed healthcare decisions and recommendations.
Speaker Charlie Chen of Zebra Technologies said that mobile healthcare tools can be used for more than collecting data on patient health. He focused on how mobile tools can allow healthcare providers to serve anybody, anywhere, at any moment.
Annie Sun, Health Strategy Manager at Cigna-CMB Life Insurance discussed a practical question that must still be answered as mobile health technology continues to develop: who will pay for mobile technology? The primary payers of health costs in China are the government, individuals and hospitals. In contrast to the US, employers and insurers do not play a large role in paying for healthcare in China. While many mobile healthcare services are currently being offered to patients free of charge by healthcare providers, this model is not guaranteed to continue into the future.