Reza Safdari

By Niloofar Mohammadzadeh and Reza Safdari

Chronic diseases impose heavy burden and costs on the health industry in many countries. Suitable health procedures, management, and prevention of disease by continuous monitoring through modern technologies can lead to a decrease in health costs and improve people empowerment. Applying remote medical diagnosis and monitoring system based on mobile health systems can help significantly reduce health care costs and correct performance management particularly in chronic disease management. In this chapter, mHealth opportunities in patient monitoring with the introduction of various systems specifically in chronic disease are expressed. Also mHealth challenges in patient monitoring in general and specific aspects are identified. Some of the general challenges include threats to confidentiality and privacy, and lack of information communication technology (ICT), and mobile infrastructure. In specific aspect, some difficulties include lack of system interoperability with electronic health records and other IT tools, decrease in face-to-face communication between doctor and patient, ill-functioning of system that leads to medical errors and negative effects on care outcomes, patients, and personnel, and factors related to the telecommunication industry include reliability and sudden interruptions of telecommunication networks.

Part of the book: Mobile Health Technologies