Mobile Technology: The Productive Edge in eHealthcare - Essay Example

Expectations from manufactures and customers while delivering mobile e-healthcare products will be discussed. It will be found that mobile e-healthcare service providers can offer innovative value-added services by developing context-based personalized products. The paper will address few of the concerns of management information system while developing personalized products under mobile technology platform.                         Computer sciences and Information Technologies (IT) have adopted great measures in the last two decades, as demonstrated by high average rates of dissemination of mobile phones and the Internet.

Adoption of these technologies in developing countries is happening rapidly (Blobel, 2008, p.105). With the popularization of Internet and coming up of user-friendly Web 2.0 computer technologies, impact of such advanced technologies is making sea changes in the way healthcare is designed and carried out (Patel and Rushefsky, 2002, p.7). At a time when there are smarter communication technologies to read and transmit data, the challenge now for healthcare professionals is to devise smarter, portable applications that can make anyone avail healthcare anytime, anywhere, and anyhow (Carlsson and Walden, 2002, p.716). It will be observed in this paper, how mobile phones are ideal to carry out such objectives and can lead to improved personal care that individuals receive.

This is important because healthcare requires a personal approach. Together with key features of mobile e-healthcare, few Management Information System (MIS) concerns related with mobile e-healthcare will be highlighted. According to Whitten and Bentley, Information Technology (IT) refers to the combination of computer technology (hardware and software) with telecommunications technology (data, image, and voice networks). Information system (IS) is an “arrangement of people, data, processes, and information technology that interact to collect, process, store, and provide as output the information needed to support the organization.

” A Management Information System (MIS) is an information system applied for management reporting based on business transactions and operations of the organization (Whitten and Bentley, 2006, pp.4-5). Healthcare is one of the most transaction-intensive industries, estimated at 30 billion transactions annually in US. However, still much of the transactions take place over telephone, paper, and EDI (Electronic Data Interchange, referring to data transfer electronically over computers between organizations) media in an isolated way within and outside organization.

It is felt that historically, management information systems are not implemented vigorously in healthcare vis-a-vis other industries in US. Integrated approach to healthcare is still a somewhat distant reality. It is crucial that problem of legacy systems that cannot communicate with one another, not just between other organizations but within the same organization, is properly addressed in future mobile e-healthcare. An up-to-date MIS would definitely improve performance of healthcare service provider in revenue terms (Wager, Lee, Glaser, 2009, p.XIII). E-health provides a way through which computers and computer technologies are deployed for healthcare through a distance.

Often the term e-health is restricted to web-based tools. However, mobile telephony, interactive digital television, and any other networking technology can be part of e-health so long it helps in the process