By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
  • Health
    • Mental Health
    Health
    Healthcare organizations are operating on slimmer profit margins than ever. One report in August showed that they are even lower than the beginning of the…
    Show More
    Top News
    An Expert’s Guide To Building and Improving Endurance
    June 30, 2022
    medical assistants
    What Do Medical Assistants Do On a Day to Day Basis?
    April 5, 2022
    superfoods to help with prostate health
    10 Healthy Foods That Can Help Protect Your Prostate
    August 29, 2022
    Latest News
    5 Steps to a Promising Career as a Healthcare Administrator
    August 3, 2025
    Why Custom Telemedicine Apps Outperform Off‑the‑Shelf Solutions
    July 20, 2025
    How Probate Planning Shapes the Future of Your Estate and Family Care
    July 17, 2025
    Beyond Nutrition: Everyday Foods That Support Whole-Body Health
    June 15, 2025
  • Policy and Law
    • Global Healthcare
    • Medical Ethics
    Policy and Law
    Get the latest updates about Insurance policies and Laws in the Healthcare industry for different geographical locations.
    Show More
    Top News
    healthcare cost crisis
    What If the Health Care Cost Crisis Solves Itself?
    May 11, 2013
    Do You Need Life Insurance? What Does It Cover?
    December 23, 2022
    HIE metal plans
    The Four “Metal Plans” of Health Insurance Exchanges
    May 28, 2013
    Latest News
    How IT and Marketing Teams Can Collaborate to Protect Patient Trust
    July 17, 2025
    How Health Choices and Legal Actions Intersect After an Injury
    July 17, 2025
    How communities and healthcare providers can address slip and fall injuries with legal awareness
    July 17, 2025
    Let Your Lawyer Handle the Work Before You Pay Medical Costs
    July 6, 2025
  • Medical Innovations
  • News
  • Wellness
  • Tech
Search
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: What’s Been Happening in mHealth: Update
Share
Notification Show More
Font ResizerAa
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
Font ResizerAa
Search
Follow US
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Health Works Collective > eHealth > Mobile Health > What’s Been Happening in mHealth: Update
Mobile HealthNews

What’s Been Happening in mHealth: Update

Tim Gee
Tim Gee
Share
6 Min Read
SHARE

Since my last blog post here at Medical Connectivity there have been some mHealth updates that may be of interest to the blog readers.

Contents
USA and FCCCertification of Mobile Medical ApplicationsDanish Telemedicine Action Plan based on Continua Guidelines

Since my last blog post here at Medical Connectivity there have been some mHealth updates that may be of interest to the blog readers.

USA and FCC

Just this week the FCC released its task force findings on mHealth.  The overarching goal given to the task force was:  “By 2017 mHealth, wireless health and e-Care solutions will be routinely available as part of best practices for medical care.”  They were to produce actionable recommendations that could be taken by the FCC, other regulatory agencies and industry to reach this goal.  The FCC committed to implementing five specific actions in the list produced by the task force:

a)  Immediately recruit for an FCC Medical Director position

b)  Develop and execute a health care stakeholder outreach plan to promote greater collaboration between the FCC and the health care sector on policies at the intersection of communications and health.

c)  Direct the International Bureau to work with FCC counterparts in other countries to encourage them to make spectrum available for MBANs and to discuss possible spectrum harmonization to allow for medically safe cross-border patient travel and better economies of scale for device makers.

d)  Consider an Order by the end of this year to comprehensively reform and modernize the Rural Health Care Program, and

e)  Consider an Order by the end of this year to streamline our experimental licensing rules to promote and encourage the creation of wireless health “test beds” to permit easier testing of mHealth devices.

More information regarding the findings can be found here.

More Read

medical writing
Words That Heal: the Power of Medical Writing in Healthcare
Angelina Jolie: Cancer Prevention to the Max
Smoking Is The Single Most Dangerous Adverse Health Behavior
The Status Of Child Health And Wellness In America Today
3 Great New mHealth Apps for Boomers

So in addition to the FDA and FTC, the FCC is signaling a significant re-direction and involvement in the mHealth industry.  What does this mean to those in the healthcare industry?  One would hope that the patchwork of regulations that cover this gray are become more integrated and clear for those who wish to delve into this part of the healthcare industry.  In the case of the USA, this does signal that the FCC understands that access to a communications infrastructure is a requirement to increase access to healthcare and other industries in remote areas.  Moreover, the FCC recognizes that the healthcare industry is large enough and relies and will continually rely more upon the telecommunications infrastructure to be viable.  Lastly, the FCC Chairman stated that another goal is for the USA to be the country were mHealth is the standard and sets the standard for the world.

Certification of Mobile Medical Applications

In the mobile medical applications realm, there is an organization that is working to make evaluating, purchasing and possibly developing Mobile Medical Apps easier:  Happtique.  According to the FAQs, Happtique is “mobile application store developed by healthcare professionals for healthcare professionals. Happtique offers healthcare enterprises—like hospitals, continuing care facilities, and physician practices—the ability to create individually branded, secure substores that support employee and patient mobile technology use.”

What is novel about this particular organization is that in order to be able to market an application on Happtique, the vendor must certify (and Happtique will verify) that they meet specific standards as per the Happtique guidelines.  These guidelines range from networkability, to protection of privacy to use of medical interoperability data standards.

To get an idea of what mHealth applications are currently available throughout the world, GSMA offers a mHealth tracker on their website which had listed the day this was written 707 mHealth products and services available around the world.  Not all of these are certified by Happtique, but perhaps in the future, the list of applications on these two website will converge.

Danish Telemedicine Action Plan based on Continua Guidelines

In news from across the pond, the government of Denmark has decided that their National Telemedicine Action Plan will be built on Continua Health Alliance Design Guidelines for personal connected health devices.  What is interesting about this is Denmark happens to be one of the countries in Europe who has adopted data and other interface standards for healthcare for over 20 years.  In fact, their current ‘medical device interface data’ standard is based on Electronic Data Interchange (EDI).  They will need to somehow work on a harmonization or convergence of HL7 and EDI for this effort to be effective; however, it should be interesting to see this progress. HL7 and EDI are messaging standards, so using the underlying data standards in the Continua Design Guidelines will definitely bring even more stringency in their standards-based approach.  The Danish Medcom site is a great website to see their 20 year progress on Health IT and interoperability and highlights the information in English.

 

 

Share This Article
Facebook Copy Link Print
Share

Stay Connected

1.5kFollowersLike
4.5kFollowersFollow
2.8kFollowersPin
136kSubscribersSubscribe

Latest News

technology in medical research
The Tools Helping Medical Researchers See the Full Picture
News Technology
August 3, 2025
5 Steps to a Promising Career as a Healthcare Administrator
5 Steps to a Promising Career as a Healthcare Administrator
Health
July 31, 2025
holistic dental
Holistic Dentist Services Are Natural and Safe
Dental health Specialties
July 28, 2025
botox certification
Help Improve People’s Skin Health Via Botox Certification
Skin Specialties
July 22, 2025

You Might also Like

Leveraging Health IT to Strengthen Patient Engagement

April 7, 2013

Hospitals Competing for Patients

February 4, 2012

PTSD Special Report: Part I, How to Curb a Potential Epidemic

April 12, 2012

Health Workers Mobility Around the World

October 17, 2012
Subscribe
Subscribe to our newsletter to get our newest articles instantly!
Follow US
© 2008-2025 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Username or Email Address
Password

Lost your password?