E-health and M-health : Health Literacy, Technology and Learning

Health literacy and Technology and Learning Colleagues,

Mobile technology has entered the world of healthcare over the past few years, and it appears likely that the mobile technology trend in health care will continue to accelerate. For example, see this article on "e-health" and "m-health" http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/content/20150701STO72927/html/Health-literacy-how-technology-can-help-to-empower-patients

  • Community health centers now routinely ask patients if they want appointment reminders by automated phone or text message.
  • For some diseases where daily monitoring of weight is essential, instead of having patients make a daily trip to their health care center, patients buy a digital scale, cable- or wirelessly connect to their smartphone, step on the scale, and send their weight data to their healthcare team.
  • For patients who need to provide daily or weekly blood pressure readings to their health care team there is a cuff that connects to a smartphone.
  • Increasingly, of course, patients communicate with physicians and other health care team members by email, and perhaps also by text message, and these applications are often able to be used on smartphones and digital tablets.

Are you aware of other m-health applications? If so, I would be interested to hear about them.

What is our role as educators in helping adult learners (some of whom may also be patients) understand how to use smartphones for these health-related information transmission needs?

 

David J. Rosen

djrosen123@gmail.com