| | July 20198By Amit Sharma, Head - Strategy & IT, Cytcare Cancer HospitalCytcare Cancer Hospital providers highly specialized, modern diagnostic services, treatment and care for Cancer.IN MY OPINIONM-HEALTH: DISEASE SURVEILLANCE & MANAGEMENTT he use of mobile and wireless technologies to support the achievement of health ob-jectives has the potential to transform the face of health-care system across the globe. A powerful combination of factors is driving this change. These include rap-id advances in mobile technologies and applications, a rise in new opportunities for the integration of mobile health into existing eHealth services and the con-tinued growth in coverage of mobile cellular networks. The unprecedented spread of mobile technologies, as well as ad-vancements in their applications to address health care needs, has evolved into a new field of eHealth, known as M-Health. M-Health, also known as mobile health - refers to the practice of med-icine and public health supported by mobile devices such as mobile phones, tablets, personal digital assistants and the wireless infrastructure. According to the International Telecommunica-tion Union, there are now close to five billion mobile phone subscriptions in the world, of which India accounts for over one billion. Today, over 85 per-cent of the world's population is cov-ered by a commercial wireless signal. The growing sophistication of these networks ­ offering higher and higher speeds of data transmission alongside cheaper and more powerful handsets ­ are transforming the way health ser-vices and information are accessed, de-livered, and managed. With increased accessibility comes the possibility of greater personalization and citizen-fo-cused public health and medical care. The term M-Health was coined by Robert Istepanian as the use of "emerging mobile communications and network technologies for health-care". A definition used at the 2010 M-Health Summit of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) was "the delivery of healthcare services via mobile communication devices". Within the M-Health space, healthcare providers use mobile technology to: · Access clinical information (e.g., through mobile health apps and mo-bile-enabled EHRs),· Collaborate with R&D teams (e.g., with secure text messaging),· Communicate with patients (e.g., through patient portals),· Offer real-time monitoring of pa-tients, and Patients use mobile health technology to:· Track their own health data through M-Health apps and devices like the Fitbit, My Fitness Pal,· Access their clinical records through mobile-enabled patient portals, and· Communicate with their providers. Surveillance of Diseases via M-HealthA key component of any M-Health initiative is the collection and trans-mission of health-re-lated data via
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