Mobile Healthcare in an Increasingly Connected Developing World

Global health care has become an enormous industry worldwide, where trends such as aging populations, environmental and climate changes, catastrophic events, and the spread and evolution of diseases pose significant challenges. With the rapid growth of information technology (IT), wireless technologies, and mobile services, health care processes are able to increasingly benefit from new technological advances. Specifically, the area of “mobile health” or mHealth, which leverages mobile phone functionality to provide medical and public health services, has become a very promising trend. Wireless and mobile technologies have great potential in improving patient care, reducing costs, streamlining processes, and allowing adherence to regulations. However, the developing world faces numerous challenges in realizing the infrastructure and technical expertise required to adopt secure mHealth solutions and applications. In this paper the authors discuss these challenges and solutions suitable for the developing world, highlighting existing problems and risks in realizing secure mHealth applications and services.