The Role of mHealth Applications in Societal and Social Challenges of the Future

In recent years, the increase in aging population in developed countries has become one of the most important societal challenges. It is becoming more and more important to ensure quality care and services in countries with a rapidly increasing ageing population and find solutions to lower the costs of healthcare. Digital technologies could present a solution in the form of digital health but the question of ubiquitous availability of these technologies is then brought to the forefront. Mobile broadband has become the fastest growing market segment which makes mHealth applications a good alternative for offering healthcare and well-being services to a wide range of users. However, without a ubiquitous and reliable mobile broadband connection, the availability of most high-bandwidth and life-critical applications is still questionable. In addition, privacy and confidentiality have always been important cornerstones in healthcare and must also be ensured in mHealth applications. Of particular interest are self-monitoring mobile applications, which have shown promise in increasing awareness of the variability of patient symptoms as well as offering reassurance through monitoring. Therefore, low-bandwidth, non-critical mHealth applications, which take advantage of existing networks and give users the opportunity to monitor their health parameters with the added input from their physician, should be more widely implemented. In this article the above-mentioned challenges are discussed and an example of an implementation of an mHealth application for diabetes self-management is presented.