Why hospitals must change the way they view mHealth

By Jenn Riggle

Most of us are familiar with mobile health apps like Fitbit, Jawbone and MyFitnessPal, which help people track their activity levels and count calories. However, these are just the tip of the iceberg.

Faced with stiff penalties for unnecessary readmissions, hospitals turn to mHealth and remote patient monitoring devices to track cardiac rhythms, glucose levels and vital signs, and identify health issues early to prevent expensive repeat trips to the hospital.

Yet, according to a recent HealthsystemCIO.com survey, 62.5 percent of hospital CIOs report that their hospitals haven't implemented a remote monitoring system. Why? Because hospitals juggle the upgrade to Stage 2 Meaningful Use criteria with ICD-10 compliance (which was just delayed until October 2015). As a result, mHealth becomes a "nice to have" versus a "must have."

However, hospitals need to change the way they view mHealth. Here's why. >> Read the full Hospital Impact post